By:  | November 18, 2023 2:34 pm

Tyson Fury was in provocative mode at the press conference ahead of his February 17th fight with Oleksandr Usyk. The winner will go down as  the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world, a crown no-one has claimed since the year 2000.

Fury won a split decision over Francis Ngannou last month. There but there was very little discussion of that match during the official press conference but afterwards the Englishman was asked if he needed time to get that fight out of his system.

Fury made it clear that he was more worried about the size of his purse than the standard of his performance,

“I just got paid nearly £50 million quid are you stupid or what? I’ve been out thinking about buying jumbo gets, mansions. All sorts of stuff!”

Language barrier

Usyk only speaks basic English so it wasn’t clear whether he understood Fury’s taunts. The Englishman repeatedly accused him of being scared and called him ugly.

He even accused Usyk of faking a low blow during his fight with Daniel Dubois. Afterwards Fury complained that his attempts to wind the Ukrainian up were frustrated by the language barrier,

“I came here to pick a fight with Oleksandr. It’s hard speaking to a foreigner who don’t speak good English back, it’s very unnatural but we’re here to fight.”

Unification fight

Fury also revealed that Usyk would be getting 30mn for this fight, although he didn’t specify a currency. What makes this fight special is that there will be five titles on the line.

Usyk holds the WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO belts while Fury is the Fury is the WBC champion and he believes that is what makes this fight so special,

“It’s been 24 years since we’ve last had an undisputed heavyweight world champion. And we know that the Klitschkos were champions for about ten years. So there’s been another 14 years where other heavyweights couldn’t stop it. So we’ve been chosen. And I believe we’re both destined to be here. And there’s only one winner: I’m destined to become undisputed champion.”

Biggest payday

Fury has been in plenty of big fights. He fought Deontay Wilder twice and had headlined events at Wembley Stadium and the T-Mobile Arena.

This looks set to be the biggest payday of Fury’s career and it has been suggested he might make as much as £100 million. For the 35 year old the significance of this fight goes well beyond the money.

He wants to become the first fighter since Lennox Lewis to unify the heavyweight titles and describes this as the most important fight of his 15 year professional career,

“I’ve been in many heavyweight title fights before and now is the most important one. We’re both undefeated. He’s a champion, I’m a champion and it’s going to be one of the fights for the ages.”