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Daily Mirror
Daily Mirror
Sport
Harry Davies

Tyson Fury accused of holding up four-man heavyweight tournament featuring Anthony Joshua

Oleksandr Usyk 's manager has insisted Tyson Fury is the only fighter preventing a four-man heavyweight tournament from happening in December.

Talks have opened over an illustrious event which would see Anthony Joshua face Deontay Wilder and Tyson Fury fight Oleksandr Usyk at the end of the year in Saudi Arabia. Alex Krassyuk, who manages Usyk, has stated both Joshua and Wilder are easy to negotiate with but Fury's "complex personality" has been a stumbling block in discussing the tournament.

“From my perspective and from my experience, ‘AJ’ is not a very complicated person to deal with. Deontay Wilder and Shelley Finkel are very reasonable people … we got in touch with him a couple of weeks ago for the first time in 10 years and we had quite a long conversation. I don't think it would be a big challenge for anyone to make a deal with him Klismas told BT Sport Boxing.

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"Oleksandr Usyk and his team are known to be the easiest people to deal with in the world of boxing. So there’s only one thing still pending and it’s a complex personality who goes back and forth, playing his games to try and squeeze as much money as possible. That was the reason why Usyk called him greedy belly!”

Heavyweight champion Fury has dismissed talks of the four-man tournament despite the likes of Eddie Hearn and Krassyuk confirming them. "I can confirm that these rumours are absolute bulls***," Fury wrote on his Instagram story. 'The Gypsy King' has since been linked to a return against Andy Ruiz Jr on July 22, but the fight is yet to be announced as official.

Tyson Fury has been named as the obstacle for the four-man tournament (Top Rank via Getty Images)

Krassyuk thinks Fury would be making a huge mistake by not facing unified champion Usyk, with a clash between the pair falling apart for April 29. Usyk is expected to defend his unified belts against mandatory challenger Daniel Dubois next, with Krassyuk also confirming that discussions for the fight they have discussed the fight with Dubois' promoter George Warren.

"Yes he is the champion and yes he has the right to do things that he wants to do, but at the end of the day he is a professional boxer and his main assignment is to perform for the boxing fans. That's why I think that if this fight does not take place it would be one of the biggest mistakes Tyson Fury could make in his career," Krassyuk added.

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