Despite the Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk rematch being officially announced for December 21, Johnny Nelson has some doubts.
The former cruiserweight champion turned Sky Sports pundit made headlines by claiming he had information that Fury’s camp for the original fight date wasn’t going well. It was later postponed due to a sparring cut on the Brit.
Fury lost the rescheduled fight via split decision, suffering a bruising knockdown in the ninth.
Nelson has again been speaking about the former WBC and lineal heavyweight champion, telling Boxing King Media that the rematch won’t go ahead. In fact, he believes ‘The Gypsy King’ will only fight again if Usyk retires.
“Unless Usyk retires, I don’t see Tyson Fury fighting. The first time they should have boxed what happened? Fight gets pushed back. Tyson is the boss, it doesn’t matter what his PR people are saying, Tyson is the boss so if he says he ain’t playing, he doesn’t care about the consequences.”
He was asked what he was basing those views on.
“I’m basing it on the effect it will have on him mentally, emotionally. He will think I did everything right, what more can I do?”
Nelson then went into further detail about why he thinks Fury will not want to face Usyk again.
“I don’t care if it’s not popular what I’m saying, what I’m saying is I know how fighters think and I know what goes on in the gym.
You can tell how it reflects and how a fighter deals with situations. You can tell in the build-up to the fight and in the fight itself, three people going blah blah blah. You’ve got to calm it down. That’s everyone else’s nerves and panic deflecting on him.”
Word from both teams and the promotion is that it’s all systems go for December 21 in Riyadh.
