Oleksandr Usyk’s assistant coach Sergey Lapin believes that Tyson Fury fought Dillian Whyte as the ‘safer option’.
Usyk and Fury were always unlikely to fight immediately because of Anthony Joshua exercising a rematch clause against the Ukrainian.
Eddie Hearn expects the fight for the WBA, WBO and IBF belts to still be contested in May or June, but that is now complicated by the Russian invasion of Usyk’s homeland, where men considered fighting age are not allowed to leave the country.
Despite the restrictions arising from the rematch clause, Lapin still believes that Fury did not fight for an undisputed match-up with Usyk because Whyte is an easier challenge.
“Usyk is always ready for any challenger,” he told MyBettingSites. “He was one of the first who agreed to hold a unification against Tyson Fury. I heard that Joshua wasn't against receiving the compensation either to allow the unification. But suddenly something went wrong, it seems to me that Tyson Fury and his team chose a much safer option for themselves - a fight with Dillian White.
The coach also levelled criticism at Fury for his social media outbursts, saying: “More than 80% of the information coming from Tyson Fury is verbal garbage to attract attention and to promote boxing fights, he also tries to get into the heads of his rivals with his words, as he did with Deontay Wilder.
“But such a story, like comparing Usyk to Tomasz Adamek, will not work with Usyk - nothing like this will affect Usyk’s psychology.”