With the combat sports community buzzing about Francis Ngannou‘s boxing match against Tyson Fury, the unified boxing world champion Oleksandr Usyk gave his take on the fight. The Ukrainian, in a recent interview with ‘Sky Sports’, claimed that ‘The Gypsy King’ is afraid to fight him.

The initial plan was for Oleksandr Usyk to unify all the major boxing world championships against Tyson Fury later this year. However, the British fighter instead chose to compete against Francis Ngannou on October 28 in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Usyk has now claimed Fury may not want anything to do with him.

Oleksandr Usyk claims Tyson Fury is “afraid”

‘The Cat’ appeared in an interview with ‘Sky Sports’ recently where he talked about the strange decision of Tyson Fury to fight Francis Ngannou. Although he believes that ‘The Predator’ has a great opportunity in front of him, he does not feel the same way about ‘The Gypsy King’. Usyk said, “For Francis Ngannou, this is a great opportunity, but for Tyson Fury, it’s definitely not.” 

Moreover, he slammed Fury’s decision to fight a debutant instead of choosing to fight him, who is a credible contender.

Usyk added, “Doesn’t it seem strange that instead of choosing a top-10 guy, he is choosing someone who has never boxed before?”

‘The Cat’ believes that the real reason for the Fury announcing a fight against Ngannou is because the WBC heavyweight champion is scared. He said, “Greedy belly [Fury] is afraid of me.” Besides, Usyk had been wanting to fight Tyson Fury for a long time now.

Oleksandr Usyk wants to become a two-weight champion

The Ukrainian boxer moved up to the heavyweight division in hopes of fighting Tyson Fury and becoming a two-weight champion. However, the negotiations fell out after ‘The Gypsy King’ demanded a 70/30 split of the payout of their fight. ‘The Cat’ even agreed to Fury’s terms. But he wanted the British boxer to donate a considerable amount to the Ukrainian relief effort. However, things didn’t end well.

Despite repeated talks about the fight, none of the parties came to an agreeable conclusion. Following that, Usyk’s promoter, Alexander Krassyuk, confirmed that the negotiations had collapsed. Moreover, Krassyuk said Tyson Fury insulted fans by picking Ngannou as his next opponent.

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Francis Ngannou will reportedly earn over $10 million in his first-ever boxing match. It is more than he ever earned during his stint in the UFC. However, many people think Fury should have chosen a different boxing opponent instead of a MMA fighter. We will have to wait and see how things pan out for both parties on October 28.

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