Who's to blame for failed Fury-Usyk talks? One man: 'The Gypsy King'
Plus a ton of other random boxing thoughts: Best option if AJ wins; Tank-Ryan PPV price and DAZN increase; Haney-Loma anticipation; best BAD fights; Ramirez's Prograis propaganda; enough of Benn
A note to Fight Freaks Unite readers: I created Fight Freaks Unite in January 2021 and eight months later it also became available for paid subscriptions for additional content — and as a way to help keep this newsletter going and for readers to support independent journalism. If you haven’t upgraded to a paid subscription please consider it. If you have already, I truly appreciate it! Also, consider a gift subscription for the Fight Freak in your life.
A huge batch of random boxing thoughts…
I hate rematch clauses. Always have.
There never should have been one in the negotiations for the now failed Tyson Fury-Oleksandr Usyk undisputed heavyweight title fight in the first place.
Even if they had nailed one down giving the loser the right to an immediate rematch, a second fight would not have been for undisputed anyway because the sanctioning bodies, which were very patient in allowing them plenty of time to make a deal, would not stand for it twice and inevitably at least one belt would wind up vacant, likely the WBA, whose mandatory is overdue.
When Lennox Lewis and Evander Holyfield met in 1999 — the last time there was a unification fight for the undisputed heavyweight crown back in the three-belt era — there was no rematch clause. They made a second fight because the public and fighters demanded it after the scandalous draw that outright robbed Lewis.
Now, here we are 24 years later with another undisputed heavyweight title fight finally set to be made only to have an impasse over 20 percent of the money in one of the possible rematch scenarios ruin the fight — an Usyk win with Fury invoking his rematch right and that sequel taking place in the United Kingdom.
That disgusts me and it is Fury’s fault.
Fury would have taken 50-50 on the rematch but Usyk wanted 70-30, which is not unreasonable at all given he would have beaten Fury and was seeking the lion’s share of the same split Fury insisted on in his favor for the now-dead April 29 fight.
The fact that Usyk, with his three belts and two wins over Anthony Joshua in his past two fights, was willing to take such a short end of the deal shows you how much he wanted the fight. He basically gave into everything Fury wanted, even under an assault of Instagram video insults from Fury and his boorish take it or leave it demand.
But Fury just pushed Usyk too far with his naked greed and need for control. Fury won the negotiation big time for the aborted April fight but it’s supposed to be a negotiation. That means one side can’t win on every point.
Fury needed to allow Usyk to be able to walk away from bargaining table with at least something to hang his hat on as a win, but Fury refused to give him anything, even if Usyk had beaten him. A proud man like Usyk doesn’t roll like that and who could blame him after all of the concessions he had already made? And now there is no fight.
Simply, the blame goes to Fury, who is already wealthy beyond comprehension for most but loves money more than his legacy. The blame does not go to Usyk, his manager Egis Klimas, or his promoter Alex Krassyuk. And it does not go to Fury co-promoters Frank Warren or Bob Arum, who were exasperated by Fury.
Fury loves to say it’s not about the money for him but, in fact, it’s only about the money for him — and about trying to exert control over his opponent at the negotiating table, and Usyk wasn’t having that on the rematch terms after giving in on everything else.
And for that we lose out on yet another mega fight.
One other thing: Usyk and his team have long had the well-earned reputation of being pretty easy to deal with. They made a deal with Joshua and fought twice with relatively little drama over the contract, which included a rematch clause that AJ triggered when he lost.
A few months ago, Fury and Joshua got close to a deal for an absolutely mega fight but — no shock here — it fell apart due to Fury’s onerous demands, which then sent him Usyk’s way looking to make the same onerous demands that kill fights.
Ask yourself this: What do those two failed attempts to make major fights have in common? Here’s a hint: a 6-foot-9 Brit who goes by “The Gypsy King.”
If Joshua handles his business on Saturday against Jermaine Franklin perhaps there will be another round of talks to make a fight with Fury. But the heavyweight fight I want to see more than Fury-Joshua and even Fury-Usyk is Joshua-Deontay Wilder.
Thou giveth: A new date for the postponed Stephen Fulton-Naoya Inoue fight.
Thou taketh away: Another postponement for Eimantas Stanionis-Vergil Ortiz Jr.
I am super pumped for Devin Haney-Vasiliy Lomachenko. If you like the art of the sweet science but also guys who can fight it out this is the fight for you.
Yes, I am thrilled the deal was made for Gervonta Davis-Ryan Garcia. No, I am not thrilled the PPV price was jacked up to $85.
I am not thrilled by the large price increase in the United States for an annual subscription to DAZN, which has gone from $100 a year to $225 in very short order. The price more than doubled and you know what? DAZN is not offering double the number of fights they used to nor are the fights they are offering double as good. Also, DAZN, if you are substantially raising rates AGAIN, how about you fix the ongoing production issues? They are too often beset by production issues. The problems during the Joseph Diaz Jr.-Mercito Gesta card on March 18 were horrendous and the Jose Zepeda-Neeraj Goyat card this past Saturday had pitiful audio for the entire show. It sounded like the announcers were speaking into a cell phone with bad reception and their hand over the speaker. Just awful, especially coming at the same time as the onerous price increase. Do better!
Speaking of Zepeda, here’s one of the unfortunate things about boxing: Regis Prograis knocked Zepeda to win the vacant WBC junior welterweight title on Nov. 26 yet but Zepeda was back in the ring first. Prograis, meanwhile, has nothing lined up or close to it. It would have been nice had Jose Ramirez’s team actually negotiated with Prograis for the mandatory title fight, but Ramirez backed out of fighting for title he used to hold and claims is important for him to regain. In fact, he backed out twice, last fall against Zepeda for the vacant title because of his impending wedding (fine, no issue with that) and the second time because he was unhappy over getting the short end of a 65-35 split of a potential purse bid. But here’s the key — the WBC mandated split only means something if there is an auction. It has nothing to do with a negotiated agreement.
Ramirez claimed he didn’t like the money for the fight because he knows what he is worth. That is fine and I can respect that. But there was never dollar figure to like or dislike because it was never discussed and there was no negotiation. Anything said to the contrary is propaganda. How can you not like the money when no money was discussed and the only thing on the table was the split of an unknown figure of a purse bid? That makes his avoidance of Prograis a duck.
Instead of facing Prograis on Saturday night, he faced the shopworn and smaller Richard Commey and although he got an 11th-round knockout, Ramirez didn’t look all that good and got hit way too much. But he got his $1 million minimum purse instead of what would been a much larger purse to challenge Prograis for the title in a major fight had they negotiated. Here’s a thought: if Commey hit Ramirez as much as he did just imagine what Prograis would do.
I wish Roy Jones Jr. would stay in retirement rather than fight this weekend. Nothing good can come of him being back in the ring.
It’s going to be some scene in Guadalajara, Mexico for Canelo Alvarez’s homecoming fight against John Ryder.
If you stayed awake for the entirety of WBO cruiserweight titlist Lawrence Okolie’s lopsided unanimous decision over mandatory challenger David Light it’s nothing to be proud of.
I watched the fight between super middleweights Christian Mbilli and Carlos Gongora and it was a helluva battle. Mbilli got hurt a few times and bounced back to win a well-deserved decision. He’s a fun a fighter to watch and strong as a bull but vulnerable enough to be a must-see guy.
The fight that launched the legend of the late, great Hall of Famer Arturo Gatti as the comeback kid and an all-time action warrior was his sixth-round knockout of Wilson Rodriguez to retain his junior lightweight title for the first time. That was the fight that led to Gatti becoming my all-time favorite fighter. The bout, which was 27 years ago this month, headlined the second edition of “Boxing After Dark,” the landmark HBO series. I was tweeting about it recently and ranked it as the fourth-best fight in “BAD” history. Here are my top seven fights in series history:
1. Erik Morales W12 Marco Antonio Barrera I
2. Micky Ward W10 Gatti I
3. Barrera TKO12 Kennedy McKinney
4. Gatti KO6 Rodriguez
5. James Toney W12 Vassiliy Jirov
6. Miguel Cotto KO7 Ricardo Torres
7. Ike Ibeabuchi W10 David Tua
The old saying is fights make fights. So, after seeing Subriel Matias recently stop Jeremias Ponce in their tremendous shootout to win the a junior welterweight title, I dream of seeing a unification fight between Matias Prograis. I dare say that is a guaranteed action fight.
I don’t know about you but I am sick to death of the Conor Benn positive drug test saga. He and his team have done the worst possible job I have ever seen handling a crisis. One excuse after another, no transparency and BS claims that he has been “cleared,” which is simply not true at all. He can try to get a license outside of the U.K. and maybe some commission will be grotesque enough to give him one, which would be unfortunate. Meanwhile, the very serious possibility that Benn could return to face Manny Pacquiao, whose decision to end his retirement is less surprising than the sun rising each morning, saddens me.
No, it wasn’t the biggest show ever but British welterweight prospect Cyrus Pattinson’s recent ninth-round knockout of game veteran Chris Jenkins in the main event Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn’s card, which was essentially a British version of “ShoBox” on DAZN, was one helluva fight. I don’t know how far Pattinson is going to go but he and Jenkins let it all hang out in a terrific fight.
I liked what I saw from Tim Tszyu in his methodical performance en route to a knockout of Tony Harrison. I don’t know if he will win, but I suspect Tszyu will give undisputed junior middleweight champ Jermell Charlo all he can handle when they meet next in the mandatory fight.
I recently watched Uzbekistan’s 24-year-old Otabek Kholmatov demolish then-undefeated Thomas Patrick Ward, whom he dropped three times, before the corner threw in the towel of their WBA featherweight title eliminator on Ward’s turf in England. Kholmatov moved to 11-0 with 10 KOs and he was extremely impressive. Remember the name. He is Mauricio Lara’s mandatory challenger.
Whatever former unified junior middleweight champion Jarrett Hurd decides to do I wish him the best. He’s a good guy and at his best he was not only the No. 1 junior middleweight in the world but one of the most exciting fighters in boxing. But the sport is unforgiving and after a 21-month layoff and a third loss in four fights at age 32, it’s hard to see a clear way forward for him in terms of the upper echelon. Whatever he does, he laid it all on the line in his recent sensational action battle with Armando Resendiz before being stopped in the 10th round due to a horrible laceration to his lip.
I can appreciate that Mark Magsayo and his team were ticked off about how wide the scores were in his decision loss to Brandon Figueroa in their recent interim featherweight title bout. Yes, the fight did seem a lot closer than 118-108, 117-109 and 117-109 (which included two point deductions from Magsayo) but the truth is Figueroa was certainly the rightful winner whatever the scores were.
I am sure I’m not the only one interested in watching middleweight Elijah Garcia’s next fight after his exciting performance on the Figueroa-Magsayo undercard.
I was thrilled to see former featherweight titlist Billy Dib, who has been battling cancer, announce that he is now in remission.
In the end, I thought the Jake Paul-Tommy Fury fight was about as good anyone had any right to expect. I went in with low expectations so I was not at all disappointed in the pay-per-view, which had solid production. I rather enjoyed the show and thought Badou Jack’s cruiserweight title win over Ilunga Makabu in the co-feature was a very entertaining fight. Excellent win for the old warhorse Jack.
This column is for paid subscribers to Fight Freaks Unite. I very much appreciate your support of this newsletter!
Give me your thoughts in the comments section
Follow me on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danrafael1/
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanRafael1
Follow me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DanRafaelBoxing
Preach! Great newsletter and I'll say I agree with 100% of everything written! Felt like I wrote it myself, if, ya know, I was a good writer, and all.
Fury disgusts me on quite a few levels, and the sport suffers from him and those like him that arrogantly demand the impossible and price themselves out of the best fights. He's a schmuk.
One further note on your Jose Ramirez piece; not only is everything you said about his ducking spot on, but somehow even after that the Commey fight was a WBC eliminator!!! The WBC rewarding Ramirez is lunacy, but even absent that, what comes of him being closer to mandatory status? We get to do that bullshit "negotiation" again? C'mon
The most distasteful thing I find about Benn is that he WPC have somehow found justification to give him a No. 7 rating. His last fight was against Chris van Heerden, one year ago, a fighter that doesn't make the top 30 in the division. In the past year he has had an aborted fight against Chris Eubank and has failed two drug tests. He does seem to have benefited from all this adverse publicity.