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There are just a few short days before Tyson Fury enters a boxing ring to square off with Francis Ngannou in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
But despite that, Fury finds himself already forced to look ahead.
That’s because the WBC heavyweight champ already has another fight on the books in either December or January against WBO, WBA, IBF and Ring Magazine heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk.
Usually, the Fury-Usyk announcement would have been held until after the Fury-Ngannou fight had been completed. But things went a little differently this time around, and Fury was none too happy about it.
“It wasn’t my choice,” Fury said Wednesday on The MMA Hour. “I would never in a million years do that. But the people who are putting these fights on, who are paying the money, they’re in control. They’re the promoters of the event. So the paymaster does what the paymaster wants, basically. But if it was up to me, I would have never, ever, ever done that. Ever. Because I never count chickens before they hatch. Ever.
“I wasn’t happy at first, for them to announce it, but there was a lot going on in the background. For me, I don’t concentrate on any other fight other than Saturday night. What happens in the future stays in the future. I’m living for today and this moment. My moment now is to fight Francis for the baddest man on the planet title, and when I’ve won that, only after I’ve won that — I won’t even think about my next until I’ve had a week off and spent some time with my family. I’ve been in camp 12 weeks — I’ll think about what’s happening next.”
Fury is a massive -1400 favorite in his fight against Ngannou, who is making his debut in a boxing ring. But that doesn’t mean he’s looking ahead to Usyk.
“You can’t listen to the betting odds. You can’t listen to what the pundits say, or what the boxing people or anybody, because they’re not in there on the night,” Fury said. “And if you start listening to people who are not boxing, then that’s the time you fail. I don’t take anybody lightly. I’ve seen so many times in the sport where people fight people they’re supposed to beat, and they’re always looking at the bigger picture.”
Either way, it looks like we’re finally set to see the fight the boxing world has been waiting years for between Fury and Usyk.