Conor Benn signs for Zuffa

Please correct me if I'm being thick but this ground breaking announcement that's going to rock boxing's foundations is that Usyk is fighting a kickboxer in May. Is that right or have I missed something ? Apparently it's nothing to do with Matchroom.

 

In Astro we trust! if you read a few pages back he said that this is not the news, something else is on the horizon.

 

Usyk isn’t innocent in all of this. He seems to get latitude no other boxer does

 

Turki is basically Richie Rich at this point, just making whatever entertains him. Usyk defending against a kick-boxer at the Pyramids in Egypt is straight-up billionaire fan fiction.

At some point the Saudis are going to look at the spend and go “what the f*** are we doing?”, and Turki will vanish from boxing as quick as he arrived. Until then, especially with Saudi money no doubt financing the Paramount bid for Warner, we’re one step away from Usyk vs Jason Statham under the Hollywood sign with Conor vs Ralph Macchio on the undercard.

No wonder John Fury thinks pressers are panto.

 

Ralph Macchio

 

You have to wonder if Saudi priorities might change or freeze for a few weeks at least.

 

Don’t care what you think. Look at the optics: Usyk tuned down Wardley by contending that it’s not a big fight when in reality it probably does a stadium fight in the UK or maybe even somewhere like Germany. He then talks up a fight against a completely finished Wilder, a fight nobody wants to see. Before settling on an albeit lucrative fight with a kick-boxer.

You can call it what you want, I don’t really care. He’s clearly not fancied the Wardley fight and people can reach their own conclusions about that.

And by the way I’m not alone in voicing that opinion, I heard Simon Jordan on the radio the other share similar sentiments.

 

It would fill Ipswich anyway! I'm sure Usyk could do what he did with Dubois and fill a stadium somewhere safe and full of Ukrainians.

Said in another post, he's clearly avoided it if not "ducked". To fight a kickboxer whilst being an unbeaten and near-undisputed champion is insane. We'll be well past a year without the lineal champion defending the belts against real contenders, what are the sanctioning bodies for?

 

Usyk has achieved everything and is now having a bit of fun for huge money at the end of his career, similar to Mayweather v McGregor or whatever.

I highly doubt a road warrior like Usyk who did AJ x2 and Fury x2 is afraid of Wardley. It would be a mismatch.

 

3x undisputed champion. Rematched his 3 biggest wins at heavyweight. I’d say he’s pretty much fought everyone he needs to fight.

 

Maybe this is a ploy to discredit the WBC, as it fits into the Zuffa 'Bin the belts' narrative.

Its worked to some extent, its a ****ing joke that its sanctioned for a world heavyweight championship fight.

 

No one is doubting how good the guy is. But fighting the same people and averaging 1/2 fights per year while dropping belts to avoid mandatories is frustrating, in my opinion. Then he fights for the belt he vacated and he is 4x undisputed. Total bull

 

The Joshua and Fury rematches came from their side as they were the A side. He had to drop the IBF first time around because he was contractually obligated to fight Fury as part of the rematch clause. He then won the belt back. None of those 3 rematches were pointless, without belts or avoidable.

As for fighting once a year, he fought Fury twice in 7 months but prior to that the delays were because of Joshua’s team and COVID/crowd restrictions.

2020 - covid, fought once
2021 - Matchroom were waiting for crowds to be allowed in the UK for the first Joshua fight
2022 - contractual rematch with Joshua and Matchroom wanted to give Joshua more time to settle in with Robert Garcia
2023 - fought once but stuff was going on with Ukraine

I am a Usyk fanboy but I just think in today’s game there are 10000 more problems than Usyk.

 

This is worse than fury ngannou.

who’d have thought it, ONLY ONE of the big champions at hw in recent years has not taken a cash grab, sell out for money type fight

 

No boxer will be afraid to get in the ring. To be honest terms like “duck”, “avoid” etc are just semantics. The reality is that Usyk has decided not to fight Wardley, the WBO champ. He’s obviously not going to be scared of Fabio and most people would back him to completely school and probably stop Fabio after seeing how easily Huni outboxed him.

Like any boxer in his position, he’ll have weighed up the following factors:
- Which opponent generates the most money for me?
- Which opponent is the easiest for me?
- Which opponent hits harder?
- What do the fans/casuals want to see?

Etc Etc

I believe that he’s looked at Wardley and decided that not only can he get an easier more lucrative fight but that “this guy stopped Parker and clearly hits like a freight train topped with an iron chin. I cba with that, I’d rather box a novice boxer and get paid more”.

You can argue that he’s entitled to do that but for me when he’s holding onto the WBC, WBA and Ring championship titles it’s not great for the sport. If he vacated I don’t think many would begrudge him the Rico fight as he’s earned it being a road warrior and fighting anyone at HW.

I agree with people who say Usyk gets off lightly especially compared to AJ and Fury taking these crossover fights. For me it was really poor when he mentioned fighting Wilder and the cope from people suggesting he just wanted to complete the “trifecta” of Fury, Joshua and Wilder was a poor justification since Wilder is so blatantly done as a boxer.