Usyk team question Fury as negotiations break down
Oleksandr Usyk's team doubt Tyson Fury ever wanted to fight the Ukrainian after talks over a heavyweight title clash broke down.
Usyk's promoter Alexander Krassyuk raised the question after the two camps were unable to compromise on the financial details of the fight, such as any potential rematch purse split.
The pair were due to meet on 29 April at Wembley Stadium, having previously agreed to a 70-30 purse split in favour of Fury.
Usyk's manager, Egis Klimas, confirmed his client had pulled out after seemingly growing frustrated at Fury's continued demands.
In an interview with Sky Sports, promoter Krassyuk said: "The Usyk side pulled out of further negotiations as the Fury side never had enough [and wanted] to pull everything and all rights to their side, I don't want to go into details as all negotiations were confidential, but I will tell you one thing, when a fighter doesn't want to fight he overprices himself knowing that the fight won't happen.
"They most likely forgot that Usyk is holding the majority of belts in the heavyweight division and Tyson just has one."
Fury only holds the WBC heavyweight title, after his trilogy victory over Deontay Wilder, whereas Usyk holds the WBA, IBF, and WBO belts after twice defeating Anthony Joshua.
Krassyuk added: "They claimed Tyson is a face and must have all the rights, but look at statistics on pay-per-view with Tyson vs Chisora and Usyk vs Chisora and then tell me who is who?"
Last year Fury's fight with Derek Chisora reportedly reached 500,000 pay-per-view sales, under half those supposedly made for when Usyk fought the same opponent in 2020.
A deadline of 1 April for the fight to be agreed had been set by WBA president Gilberto Mendoza, and this latest setback looks likely to put pay to any chance of the event being set before that date.
