By Edward Chaykovsky

According to James Ali Bashir, trainer of Olympic gold medal winner Oleksandr Usyk (9-0, 9 KOs), says former world champion Antonio Tarver was asking for a huge amount of money to come in as a sparring partner.

Usyk is preparing for a mandatory fight with WBO cruiserweight world champion Krzysztof Glowacki (26-0, 16 KOs). The fight is scheduled to take place on September 17th at Ergo Arena in Poland.

The contest is one of the more anticipated fights of the year.

Bashir revealed in an interview with BaylorIC TV that Tarver was not only looking for a lot of money, he also wanted to be showcased in the co-featured position on the card. Bashir wanted Usyk to have the most experienced sparring partners he could obtain and saw Tarver as a perfect fit for what they were looking for in camp, but they were unable to meet his asking price.

"Tarver wanted too much money, and in addition he wanted to appear in the co-main event of the card. We could offer him a position on the card, but not in the co-featured fight of the night. We were not able to pay him as much as he wanted for sparring," Bashir said.

This past April at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Glowacki made a voluntary defense against former IBF champion Steve Cunningham. He scored four knockdowns on route to a twelve round unanimous decision win.

Uysk was due to take an interim-fight to stay busy, but suffered an injury in camp and now heads straight to a world title shot. Usyk was last seen in the ring back in December when he stopped heavyweight contender Pedro Rodriguez in seven rounds.

Glowacki captured the world title last August with a knockout victory over longtime champion Marco Huck of Germany. He suffered some injuries to his hand and elbow during the contest and required surgery.