Frank Warren has revealed that an undisputed fight with Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk could happen in early 2024.
The boxing community has been waiting since 1999 in order to see their first-ever undisputed champion in the heavyweight division.
Although that may be the case, getting a fight together has been far from easy. Talks for a fight in April broke down, even though Usyk had agreed to take the short end of a 70-30 split.
As a result, Usyk focused on his mandatory as he beat Daniel Dubois in a controversial ninth-round stoppage. As for Fury, the WBC heavyweight champion will square off against Francis Ngannou on October 28th, 2023.
But provided that Fury beats Ngannou, as he is expected to do, Warren felt a fight could happen.
“Well no really because that fight [between Fury and Usyk], we were talking about doing that fight early next year and that is still the plan.
“The plan was that the winner of the fight on Saturday was to fight Tyson [Fury] early next year. So that won’t go on before then. Because of what the bigger picture is, you can’t just cast aside Daniel’s situation. He was unfairly treated there.
“Although all the belts were on the line in the fight, it was the WBA’s turn as far as their mandatory is concerned, so what we’ll do, is we’ll collate our photographic and video evidence and present it to them and present what was said at the rules meeting determining what were legal and what were illegal blows and they’ll have to make a decision,” Warren said
And yet, there is an issue with Dubois’ appeal. In the aftermath of the Brit’s loss, Warren made it clear that Dubois’ camp would try and turn the result into a no contest.
The knockdown in the fifth round, which was deemed a low blow, allowed Usyk to take over three minutes to recover. And the rest was history, as Dubois was stopped in the ninth.
So until the issue of that appeal has been resolved fans have been left none the wiser.