Sharing the squared circle with Tyson Fury is what fuels Oleksandr Usyk, and the WBC heavyweight championship is just extra motivation for the Ukrainian.
I just need to meet him in the ring: Oleksandr Usyk
The unified heavyweight world champion, who already has the WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO belts in his possession, will be locking horns against mandatory challenger Daniel Dubois this Saturday night in Wroclaw, Poland.
Although it will be the first time in more than a year when Usyk returns to action, he was originally in conversation with an undisputed title fight against “The Gypsy King”, which ultimately fell apart due to disagreement regarding the purse split for the rematch which was part of the fight deal.
All that being said, “The Cat” admits that he still needs to face Fury and its his biggest motivation, and having a shot at the green and gold belt- one last step to become undisputed, is additional motivation.
“Fury is beautiful and funny. I don’t think about him at all, I just need to meet him in the ring,” said Usyk in a recent interview.“I need him, the WBC belt is just additional motivation but me and him just need to fight. Fans and people will talk about our fight for 20, 30, 40 years. We need to fight.”
Usyk’s upcoming title defense against Dubois couldn’t take place in Ukraine as the country is still engaged in conflict against Russia, but the boxer is looking forward to have the homely support of the large Ukrainian community in Wroclaw.
“That city has a large Ukrainian community and it has a boxing history,” Usyk went on, “Vitali Klitschko boxed Tomasz Adamek there and there are a lot of boxing fans there. There are also a lot of MMA fighters from there.”
“I pray every day for the lord to give me more understanding of what is going on in Ukraine. I don’t want to be angry at people, I want to love this world as it is. If I can bring my people just a little bit of enjoyment, I would fight everyday. Because of where they are, they don’t have anything else to do, or look at, other than fighting for freedom. But we are going to get that freedom,” concluded Usyk. [H/T Boxingscene.com]
