‘The Gypsy King’ says he’s defending his crown this year, but it won’t be against the other ruler of the division.
Tyson Fury, after watching and being involved in WWE’s Clash at the Castle, caught up with Ariel Helwani for BT Sport. Within the interview, he was asked for an update on his potential undisputed fight with Oleksandr Usyk. Fans who were hoping to see it next, look away now.
“He let his mouth go and now he’s running scared – like a little b***h what he is. Says he wants to fight next year, he’s got some injuries from that sparring contest that he had so I can’t really do much about it. I’m going to be fighting very soon against… we don’t know yet, we’re still looking for an opponent.”
“I’m going to fight in the next few months here in the UK.”
“Usyk’s not going to be ready – doesn’t want the fight … Whoever Frank Warren gets for me, that is who I’ll defend my WBC belt against.”
He goes onto confirm, however, that he would take the fight – providing some hope that this year’s show out may be a warm-up fight of sorts in preparation for the Ukrainian.
“I’d take the middleweight because that’s the easiest fight to be fair and I think that the undisputed fight, not that I’m greatly interested in undisputed – never have been never will be – however, if you’ve got this guy, pumped up middleweight, who people think is some great boxer which I don’t really rate myself, then that’s the fight. That’s the money fight.”
“Unfortunately the guy doesn’t want to fight. He’s come out and openly said he’s not going to fight me this year. He wants the fight next year, so can’t do anything about that. The Big Mack will be back soon – I’m going to start training camp soon, we’re gonna get an opponent and we’re going to put an epic, epic night on.”
It would be an understatement to say that Fury changes his mind quite a bit. Towards the end of the 5 minute interview, he revealed that the planned 2022 fight was further along than he had been letting on. Maybe he decided on an opponent during the chat or wants to create a bit of hype. Most likely is that he just wants to keep us – and every potential opponent – guessing.
“I know who I’m fighting and I know where it is. So it’ll be announced early next week. I don’t know, I can’t say. I can’t tell you who it is because there would be no point having a press conference would there next week?”
As with any Fury interview, he may be playing some mind games here. Considering he was retired a few weeks ago and now has his next two potential fights lined up, you’d be forgiven for being sceptical. You can watch the full video below.