LONDON (Reuters) – The postponed world heavyweight title unification fight between Britain’s Tyson Fury and Ukraine’s Oleksandr Usyk has been rescheduled for Riyadh on May 18, promoter Queensberry said on Saturday.
The bout was originally for Feb. 17 in Riyadh but was postponed on Friday after Fury suffered a cut during sparring.
The “Ring of Fire” bout was set to unify Fury’s WBC heavyweight championship with Usyk’s WBA, IBF, WBO and IBO belts, crowning the first unified heavyweight boxing champion since 1999.
Fury, 35, won his WBC championship after knocking out American Deontay Wilder in 2020, while 37-year-old Usyk won his belts after outscoring Britain’s Anthony Joshua in 2021.
Both boxers are undefeated in their professional careers.
Queensberry’s Frank Warren said on Friday that Fury had been sparring with a Croatian heavyweight whose elbow caught the Briton over the right eye, opening a cut that needed “significant stitching”.
Saudi organisers Riyadh Season said on Friday that tickets for the original fight would be refunded.
(Reporting by Alan Baldwin,; Editing by Mark Potter and Ed Osmond)
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