TYSON FURY’S hotly anticipated fight against Oleksandr Usyk looks set to head to England.
Talks had been ongoing regarding a venue, but England has now emerged as the likely host after talks for Saudi Arabia ground into deadlock.
According to ESPN, the two heavyweight champions remain some way apart in terms of financial demands.
April 29 remains the desired target date for the bout – which will unify the heavyweight division for the first time in nearly 25 years.
However, with the fight now “highly unlikely” to head to the Middle East, the general efforts of the fight have taken a dent.
This is because Saudi Arabia were prepared to table “the biggest purse in boxing history” to host the fight.
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Indeed, Fury himself said he would “go where the money is.”
Promoter Bob Arum has previously spoken about the possibility of the fight being at Wembley, though admitted the preferred destination was Saudi Arabia.
He told Boxing Scene in January: “Everybody agreed that if [Saudi Arabia’s] offer comes through and it’s real, that’s how we’ll go. If not, we’ll do the fight at Wembley.
“The fighters have agreed to fight. I spoke to Frank Warren. We’re giving them until [this] week to come with their offer, which I believe we’ll get.
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“If we don’t, then we’re gonna do the fight at Wembley.
“And then we’d have to talk about the percentages because Usyk wants 50-50.
“That’s not right if the fight’s at Wembley because there will be 95,000 Brits at the fight and big Brit pay-per-view money, so Tyson deserves the lion’s share.
“But we don’t get to that point if the [investors in Saudi Arabia] come through, because the way they operate is they make deals with each of the fighters.
“We’ve been led to believe that they’re going to come with a proposal [this] week.
“I’ll believe it when I see it, but it’s not like they haven’t come through in the past.”
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Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
