Oleksandr Usyk’s Filip Hrgovic fight won’t impact Tyson Fury bout, promoter insists

The 35-year-old retained his WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO heavyweight titles in August

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Oleksandr Usyk’s mandatory commitments with IBF challenger Filip Hrgovic will have no bearing on a world heavyweight title unification fight against Tyson Fury, his promoter has insisted.

The 35-year-old retained his WBA, WBO, IBF and IBO heavyweight titles with a second consecutive win over Anthony Joshua in August and wants to add Fury’s WBC crown to his collection early next year.

The Ukrainian confirmed earlier this month he was only interested in fighting Fury next, but Hrgovic’s team announced last week that the IBF had ordered Usyk to fight the Croatian, who boasts a 15-0 record.

Fury next fights Derek Chisora for a third time on 3 December having beaten him comfortably in both 2011 and 2014.

“At this stage I can anticipate that it will not influence the undisputed (fight) anyhow,” Alexander Krassyuk told Sky Sports. “We expect his next fight to be for the undisputed so most likely it will take place in the Middle East.”

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Usyk has fought on these shores before, however, and there is interest in bringing him back to fight in the UK again.

“We think his fights should be in the UK. We’d love to work with Oleksandr and that’s something that we are speaking about,” promoter Ben Shalom told Sky Sports. “He wants to fight in the UK, he knows that the UK is probably a very strong market.

“We’ve seen him over here so many times, we’d love to have him over in the UK, really build his message and build his following and have him on the home side. Because he’s always come over here, whether it was [against Tony] Bellew or [Derek] Chisora and he’s always been the away fighter.

“I think British fans have really bought into Oleksandr Usyk and his personality over the past few years and everything that he’s done in Ukraine is inspirational as well. I think the UK can really get behind that. He can be a star in the UK. He can be the home fighter for the first time and obviously he’s a unified world champion at the moment and one of the biggest stars in the sport.

“I think Oleksandr still could become a much bigger star than he already is. He has the potential. But because he’s never been someone’s priority and the home side in the UK, he’s probably never got to the level of stardom that he could. I think right now is the perfect time.”

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