Tyson Fury has previously claimed he wouldn't fight 'foreigner' Oleksandr Usyk, saying that no one would be interesting him fighting a 'nobody.'
It won't actually have come as a surprise to find that Fury and Usyk won't be fighting each other at Wembley on April 29th, as had been hoped.
Even before Wednesday's news that the negotiations were off, the fight date was getting awfully close to announce a heavyweight world title unification.
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When the fight did inevitably collapse, due to a disagreement about the rematch clause, it was the third time in the past few years an obvious unification fight had fallen through.
In a fashion that we've seen about a million times from him before, the WBC champion, Fury, has gone on the attack since the announcement.
Speaking on his social media page, the undefeated British boxer called the Ukrainian a "little s**thouse, little s**tbag and little coward,' in an extraordinary but highly typical rant.
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Whilst the 34-year-old is clearly blaming his rival, others have noticed that he's previously told iFL TV that he had no interest in fighting Usyk.
"No. Usyk ain’t on the list, he’s a no-name, no-one’s interested and it doesn’t make any money," the Gypsy King said before his would be opponent had beaten Anthony Joshua to become a world champion.
"So what would I wanna fight him for?
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"He’s a small cruiserweight, foreigner, don’t speak good English [irony], and nobody’s really interested anyway, he’s not setting anything alight.
"I want the big fights people are interested in and that ain’t one of them.”
Asked if the former cruiserweight world champion beating Joshua would change his mind, Fury replied, "Still wouldn't be a big fight. He's still a foreigner in westernised world, the belts are back in the west, and they're gonna stay there.
"Whatever it sounds like, the heavyweight champions should be from Britain or America, nowhere else, that's it. Because maybe in Ukraine he might be a big star, but Britain or America aren't interested in some Ukrainian boxers boxing in Ukraine, and that's the way it is.
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"The heavyweight champion needs to be in the west, and that's it, that's how it goes."
The entire thing is a very strange diatribe from the WBC title holder, against a man who now holds three versions of the world title.
Fury's first victory in a world title fight came against Usyk's fellow Ukrainian Wladimir Klitschko in 2015, who'd held the titles for nine years previous to that.
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His brother held other versions of the titles from 2004 to 2012, before retiring as champion, but apparently the heavyweight champion needs to be American or British.
The weird comments are not the first that the Gypsy King has made that have been offensive, previously claiming Jewish people "own the banks," compared transgender people to the practice of beastiality and said that a woman's best place was "on her back."
Featured Image Credit: iFL TV/AlamyTopics: Boxing, Heavyweight Boxing, Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk
