Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum, who co-promotes WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury, would still like to see his boxer collide with IBF, WBO, IBF, WBA champion Oleksandr Usyk at some point in 2022.
But, both boxers have fights to overcome before that happens.
Fury has a mandatory defense hanging over his head, against top-rated contender Dillian Whyte.
And Usyk has a contracted rematch obligation with Anthony Joshua.
Arum expects both champions to win - and then wants them to collide on a date in September.
“Everybody, I think, on our side, wants him to fight Usyk,” Arum said to The MMA Hour. “But Usyk is obligated to Joshua, who has a rematch clause. And now there’s Dillian Whyte, who’s the mandatory challenge. And it becomes very, very complicated to go right to an Usyk fight.
“So my hope is that Usyk fights Joshua and Tyson Fury fights Dillian Whyte, and then hopefully Usyk, who is a lovely young man and a great fighter, wins his fight, and Tyson Fury wins his fight, and they can fight a unification battle next September.”
Fury's last five fights have taken place in the United States.
The obvious plan, at the moment, is to have Fury defend his title against Whyte on UK soil - with discussions already underway to have that event happen in the first quarter of the coming year.
“I’d like to see him fight Dillian Whyte in the UK at the end of February, no later than the beginning of March,” Arum said. “That’s what Fury has told me.
“He’s done his last five fights, five or six fights, in the United States, and it’s time that he went back home to the UK to do another fight. When we get to the unification fight, we’ll take a look at it and see what the best venue is for that fight.”
