Oleksandr Usyk’s promoter, Alex Krassyuk, has weighed in on discussions for a four man heavyweight festival in Saudi Arabia towards the end of the year, and believes Tyson Fury is the only man who can stop the historic event from happening.
Skills Challenge Group in Saudi are reportedly working towards staging a show that would see Usyk face Fury on the same card as Deontay Wilder vs Anthony Joshua in what would be unprecedented night for the sport.
Appearing on BT Sport’s Chatterbox, Krassyuk revealed he had found all other parties easy to deal with – except for one, perhaps unsurprising, exception.
“From my perspective, ‘AJ’ is not a very complicated person to deal with. Deontay Wilder and Shelley Finkel are very reasonable people … And Oleksandr Usyk and his team are known to be the easiest people to deal with in the world of boxing.”
“So there’s only one thing still pending, and it’s a complex personality who goes back and forth, playing his games to try and squeeze as much money as possible.”
“That’s why Usyk called him ‘greedy belly!'”
Usyk looks set to take on mandatory challenger Daniel Dubois before any such tournament, however, whereas Fury will reportedly take on either Andy Ruiz Jr or Zhilei Zhang this summer.
Joshua had looked likely to rematch old foe Dillian Whyte in July, however this was thrown well up in the air after ‘AJ’ recently stated on his Instagram story that his next outing would not be until December.
If it goes ahead, the blockbuster event in Saudi would almost certainly be the richest card in boxing history, with a figure of £300 million being banded about in the press.