Lucas Jones
A cut suffered by Tyson Fury has caused his fight with Oleksandr Usyk to crown the first four-belt undisputed heavyweight champion to be postponed from its original date of February 17. The pair will now face each other on May 18 in Saudi Arabia, headlining a card that features several other significant fights, including two world championship battles on the undercard.
Both men enter the fight coming off scares in their 2023 campaigns, with Usyk being taken down by Daniel Dubois only for the referee to rule it a low kick and allow Usyk time to recover. He then stopped Dubois in round 9. Fury was forced into a much more difficult situation in October when his unbeaten record narrowly survived a fight with former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou. Ngannou scored a knockdown and did enough to win several rounds, although Fury ultimately scored a split decision victory. Although Fury’s title wasn’t on the line, a loss would have been even more embarrassing than narrowly escaping with a victory in a fight he was expected to dominate.
On the undercard, Joe Cordina (17-0, 9 KO) will defend his IBF super featherweight championship against Anthony Cacace (21-1, 7 KO). Cordina won the belt in June 2022 with a Knockout of the Year contender over Kenichi Ogawa, but was stripped due to injury. He defeated Shavkat Rakhimov to regain the title last April via split decision and retained the belt with a majority decision victory over Edward Vazquez in November.
Cacace is ranked 9th by the IBF and holds the IBO title – not recognized as a legitimate world title – and enters the fight on a six-fight winning streak.
Jai Opetaia (24-0, 19 KO) and Mairis Briedis (28-2, 20 KO), both former cruiserweight champions, will fight for the IBF cruiserweight title in a rematch. Opetaia and Briedis were supposed to meet for over a year, as Opetaia held the IBF belt, but injuries prevented the fight from taking place. In December, the IBF stripped Opetaia of his title for fighting Ellis Zorro on the undercard of the heavyweight supershow in Saudi Arabia headlined by Anthony Joshua vs Otto Wallin, as they wanted Opetaia to wait to fight Briedis.
The IBF then ordered Briedis to fight Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez for the vacant belt, only for Ramirez to schedule a fight with Arsen Goulamirian for the WBA belt in March, leading all the way back to Opetaia vs. Briedis. The only real impact of the IBF’s withdrawal from Opetaia was the IBF losing a sanction fee for the Zorro fight.
Opetaia won the IBF belt for the first time by defeating Briedis. He made a successful defense of the belt before being stripped. Due to injuries, Briedis has not fought since the July 2022 loss to Opetaia.
Fury vs. Usyk, odds
- Tyson Fury (c) -110 vs. Oleksandr Usyk (c) +100, undisputed heavyweight championship
- Jai Opetaia -500 vs. Mairis Briedis +350, IBF cruiserweight championship vacant
- Joe Cordina (c) -450 vs. Anthony Cacace +350, IBF super featherweight championship
- Agit Kabayel x Frank Sanchez, heavyweights
- Mark Chamberlain x Joshua Oluwaseun Wahab, lightweights
- Sergey Kovalev vs Robin Sirwan Safar, light heavyweight
- Isaac Lowe x Hasibullah Ahmadi, featherweight
- David Nyika x Michael Seitz, cruiserweights
- Moses Itauma x Ilja Mezencev, heavyweights
Viewing information
- Date: May 18
- Location: Kingdom Arena – Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
- Start time: 2 p.m. ET
- How to watch: DAZN PPV | Price: $69.99
