{"id":650760,"date":"2026-06-21T15:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T15:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/650760\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T15:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T15:29:07","slug":"tyson-fury-dismisses-oleksandr-usyks-reason-for-refusing-to-face-moses-itauma-rubbish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/650760\/","title":{"rendered":"Tyson Fury dismisses Oleksandr Usyk’s reason for refusing to face Moses Itauma: “Rubbish!”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tyson Fury<\/a> has considered Oleksandr Usyk<\/a>\u2019s justification for distancing himself from a showdown with heavyweight prodigy Moses Itauma<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian comes off an 11th-round stoppage victory over Rico Verhoeven<\/a>, only he was made to work harder than expected to get the former long-reigning kickboxing champion out of there.<\/p>\n

In what was initially thought to be nothing more than a showcase event, Usyk ended up trailing on one judges\u2019 scorecard after 10 completed rounds.<\/p>\n

Their contest last month then resulted in controversy when Verhoeven, after being floored by a right uppercut, was waved off by referee Mark Lyson.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old later filed an appeal against the decision, seeing that he was stopped after the bell had sounded, but his efforts were ultimately dismissed<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Usyk, meanwhile, must decide whether to vacate his WBC title \u2013 and potentially pursue a rematch with Verhoeven \u2013 or face WBC \u2018interim\u2019 champion Agit Kabayel.<\/p>\n

Either way, the 39-year-old has expressed no interest in fighting Itauma, who comes off an emphatic fifth-round finish over the typically durable Jermaine Franklin, claiming that he didn\u2019t want to \u2018break\u2019 him at such a young age<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, I\u2019m not going to fight with Itauma because he\u2019s a young guy. I don\u2019t want to break this guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking with IFL TV<\/a>, former opponent Fury doesn\u2019t believe Usyk\u2019s reasoning for not wanting to face Itauma.<\/p>\n

\u201cBulls**t. Oleksandr is coming up to around 40 years old, he has just been pushed all of the way and probably lost every round against a kickboxer. So, I don\u2019t think that he wants to fight a 21-year-old kid who is mustard, for no gain.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is not going to gain big money because Moses doesn\u2019t have that following at the moment or the popularity. He is coming up, he is a rising star but he is not on top at the moment, so he [Usyk] isn\u2019t going to gain anything from it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all to lose and nothing to gain. If he beats Moses, he has beat a young kid coming up and if he loses to Moses, he has lost to a 21-year-old, so it doesn\u2019t make much sense [for Usyk to fight him].\u201d<\/p>\n

Itauma will face Filip Hrgovic at London\u2019s O2 Arena on August 29, entering his toughest assignment in the professional ranks thus far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tyson Fury has considered Oleksandr Usyk\u2019s justification for distancing himself from a showdown with heavyweight prodigy Moses Itauma.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":650761,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-650760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=650760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/650760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/650761"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=650760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=650760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=650760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}