The clock was ticking on whether we'd finally see the purse bid hearing for the scheduled WBC heavyweight title fight between champion Tyson Fury and Dillian Whyte. But for the fourth and what the sanctioning body says is the final time, the hearing was postponed at the request of the Fury and Whyte camps to attempt to close a deal.
“The World Boxing Council has received once again requests from the teams of Tyson Fury and Dillian Whyte to extend the period of free negotiations,” Mauricio Sulaiman, the WBC president, said in a prepared statement on Wednesday morning. “The WBC has granted this final extension, and If there is no agreement, a purse bid will be held this coming Friday, January 28.”
Negotiations have been ongoing between the respective parties with an 80-20 split in Fury's favor, per the WBC. Not happy with the split, Whyte appealed the ruling and is still awaiting a verdict on the matter.
Because of that, Fury's camp has been negotiating with three-belt champion Oleksandr Usyk's team about an undisputed title fight. Usyk is contractually obligated to face Joshua in a rematch from their bout last Sept. 25, in which the native of the Ukraine wrested the belts away from the Englishman. Joshua's promoter, Eddie Hearn, told the DAZN Boxing Show that a step-aside offer had been made to his fighter.
"There is definitely no deal done. "Long way to go in terms of detail," Hearn said.
A new wrinkle to the situation is that ESPN is reporting Whyte has also been offered a step-aside deal so Fury and Usyk can fight. There's been no word from Whyte's camp on the report.