LONDON (AP) \u2014 Oleksandr Usyk won’t be Tyson Fury’s \u201cback-up plan\u201d after Fury challenged Usyk to a trilogy fight because he can’t nail down a long-awaited bout with Anthony Joshua.<\/p>\n
Negotiations for a lucrative all-British fight between former heavyweight champions Fury and Joshua have dragged on without a firm date or venue, and key financial questions left open.<\/p>\n
In a video packed with insults and expletives on Instagram late Sunday, Fury laid the blame with Joshua, branding him \u201cweak-minded\u201d and suggesting he lacked the courage to take the fight. \u201cThis will only lead me to a fight with Oleksandr Usyk,\u201d Fury said.<\/p>\n
But Usyk’s manager Sergey Lapin said in a statement to Sky Sports News that \u201cUsyk is not Tyson\u2019s back-up plan. If Fury needs an opponent, he should visit the Ready to Fight platform. They can help him find a worthy opponent there.<\/p>\n
\u201cOleksandr is always open to big challenges. But serious intentions are backed by a concrete offer, not statements in the press.\u201d<\/p>\n
Usyk (25-0) vacated his three heavyweight world titles in June and said he wanted one \u201clast dance\u201d fight before retirement. He beat Fury twice in 2024.<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s do it again. Let\u2019s run it back in November,” Fury said. “The ball is now in your court, Oleksandr. Do you want to fight me this year, 2026, or are you calling quits? Let me know because I am now looking for a new opponent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fury (36-2-1) and Joshua (30-4) both won tuneup fights in July that were expected to be a prelude to their all-British bout.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
\n See AP\u2019s full sports coverage here\n <\/p>\n
The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON (AP) \u2014 Oleksandr Usyk won’t be Tyson Fury’s \u201cback-up plan\u201d after Fury challenged Usyk to a trilogy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889445,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-889444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=889444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889444\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}