The boxing world is already aware of the Tyson Fury Vs Oleksandr Usyk bout being called off. The controversial saga has raised quite a few eyebrows. Former cruiserweight champion Johnny Nelson is not an exception. He feels that Tyson deployed public negotiations as a “smoke and mirror” tactic as he hardly had any intentions to go through with the Usyk fight.
Johnny Nelson is the longest reigning champion in the history of the cruiserweight division. The former champion, from his experience, feels that he has noticed the same pattern with Fury’s camps before. He drew reference to Anthony Joshua’s fight against Fury.
What did Tyson Fury do during the negotiations with with Anthony Joshua?
Nelson went on to explain how Fury peppered Joshua with relentless insults and jokes, followed by calling him out on numerous occasions.
‘Johnny’ claimed that Fury was a bully. He even defined bullying and how it shaped Fury’s tactic. Nelson felt like Joshua looked “like a p**sy*” when he kept evading Fury’s callous and absorbed all the insulting jokes hurled at him. He became a laughingstock in the viewers’ eyes, and Fury ensured that would happen. In a conversation with IFL TV, Nelson labeled that as passive bullying from Fury.
The same happened with Usyk, Nelson felt. Oleksandr, however, took a leaf out of Joshua’s book and responded to Fury’s antics. The Ukrainian was hell-bent on fighting Fury. Which is why he called Fury’s bluff. For this exact reason, Nelson feels that the fight was never meant to be.
How did the negotiations between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk fall off?
Fury, previously, engaged in verbal spats online. He, along with his promoter, Frank Warren, kept asking for the lion’s share of the purse. Allegedly, Fury, in the middle of the ongoing negotiations, agreed to a 50/50 split. Eventually, that was inevitably called off by ‘The Gypsy King’, asking for further money.
This is what has irked Nelson the most. Nelson mentioned that Fury was the one to propose the finally agreed-upon purse split. In fact, Fury did ask for a 70/30 purse split in his favor, and to almost everybody’s surprise, Usyk agreed to it. Usyk, however, just added one clause of Fury donating a million pounds to war-torn Ukrainians.
For reasons unbeknownst to the fans, the deal eventually broke down. Usyk will probably have to go for his mandatory title defense against Daniel Dubois. However, Nelson and a lot, in their own right can call Fury out for his back-and-forth negotiation tactics.
