WBA to order Oleksandr Usyk vs Daniel Dubois if no Tyson Fury deal by end of day

Time is just about up on Tyson Fury vs Oleksandr Usyk. The WBA announced today that after giving the two a week’s extension to hash out an undisputed title fight, the sanctioning body will order Usyk to fight “world” champion Daniel Dubois if they can’t come to an agreement by 5:00 PM Eastern.

The odds of that look slim. Usyk’s (20-0, 13 KO) promoter, Alex Krassyuk, recently alleged that Fury (33-0-1, 24 KO) priced himself out of negotiations and turned down a proposal that would see a 60/40 purse split in favor of the winner. Fury responded by saying Usyk deserved no more than 30%, a number that would drop each day until they came to terms.

It is, as always, worth noting that Fury will say anything that comes to mind. Don’t take anything that comes out of his mouth at face value.

After a string of superfight announcements, it’s looking like this will be another one that got away. Fury would hypothetically have to fight a mandatory challenger while Usyk dealt with Dubois, as he’s coming up on a year since knocking out Dillian Whyte, but no apparent progress has been made on the ordered Deontay Wilder vs Andy Ruiz Jr eliminator and the WBC shows no signs of wanting to speed things along.

I’ll save the grumbling and finger-pointing until after the official collapse, but y’all are free to do so in the comments.