TYSON FURY and Oleksandr Usyk will fight each other NEXT without any interim bouts, according to promoter Bob Arum.
Fury, 34, defended his WBC heavyweight title with a 10th round stoppage of Derek Chisora earlier this month.
The result paves the way for the undefeated Brit to face IBF, WBA and WBO champion Usyk, 35, – who beat Anthony Joshua for a second time back in August.
The WBA have ordered Usyk to fight Daniel Dubois next but Fury’s team believe an undisputed clash would allow that to be pushed back.
And Arum, 91, who has promoted Fury since 2019, has now insisted Fury and Usyk are on a collision course to fight in the coming months.
Speaking to Sky Sports, he said: “The two fighters have agreed to fight each other next.
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“With Fury and Usyk we’re dealing with two adults, not a lot of [rubbish] back and forth.
“Usyk is a good friend of mine, he’s very intelligent and Tyson is Superman, both as an athlete and as an intellect.
“So they want the fight. Both of them want the fight and so there’ll be very little, if any, [messing] around.
“So we’ll be able to make that happen. I’m very, very confident.
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“As I said the fighters have both agreed to fight each other next without any interim fights.”
No date or location has been set – with the Middle East though to be the frontrunner ahead of the UK.
But Arum has said he expects it to take place before the end of April next year.
He continued: “Now the question is what’s the date and what’s the site. But that fight is definitely going to happen and it will happen in the first four months of next year.
“We are balancing a couple of significant offers from the Mid East and also there’s the possibility of doing the fight in the UK at Wembley [stadium] with a massive 95,000 crowd in attendance.
“Fighters have a relatively short life and money is important.
“So if the money which has been proposed to us is real that has to be taken into consideration.
“To go back to Wembley and do a fight before 95,000 people for me really stirs up the blood. It would be crazy. It would just be wonderful.”
He then finished: “We’ll have it all sorted out. I hope maybe by the end of the year.”
Both Usyk and Fury are undefeated as professionals – with the Ukrainian 20-0 and his British counterpart 33-0-1 – the one being a controversial draw with Deontay Wilder back in 2018.
However, Fury recently claimed Usyk will be an easier night’s work than his comfortable demolition of Chisora.
And he points to Usyk’s battling win over Delboy as evidence the 2012 Olympic gold medallist is not on his level.
He told iFL TV: “I don’t think it is a tough fight. I don’t think it’s nowhere near as tough as old Del Boy.
“He will not stand up to those punches that Derek did against me.
“When I watch the fight between him and Derek, whether people want to admit it or not, it was a 50/50 fight.
“It might have been 55/45, but it wasn’t a landslide. It wasn’t like he didn’t win a round, like he didn’t against me.”
Source: Boxing - thesun.co.uk
