By Steve Kim
It was announced earlier today by the World Boxing Super Series that Oleksander Usyk has a ''minor elbow injury'' that would prevent him from facing Murat Gassiev in the finals of their cruiserweight tournament which was scheduled for May 11th.
The tournament final would unify all four of the major cruiserweight titles - with the IBF, WBA, WBO, WBC championships at stake when they collide.
So with that, what does Gassiev do in the meantime?
"We just got word of it a couple of days ago so we scheduled a flight home for him this morning. So he left for the airport at six," said his trainer, Abel Sanchez, of his fighter who hails from Russia.
"I'll give him a week off, he's still a young man, there's still a lot of learning to do still," continued Sanchez of his 24 year old charge who in the semi-finals of the WBSS unified the IBF and WBA cruiserweight titles by stopping Yunier Dorticos in the 12th and final round on February 3rd.
"So a week-to-ten days off I told him. He should be back hopefully right after Gennady (Golovkin) fights."
As for when this highly anticipated clash of unified cruiserweight champions will be rescheduled, Sanchez stated - "That they haven't said, I did read something about July. Let's assume it's the middle of July, so I get him back in ten days and we've got plenty of time."
The May 11th date was supposed to take place in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia but there is rampant speculation that this bout may actually end up in Russia.
BoxingScene.com reported over the weekend, that a huge financial push is coming from Russia, where the boxing federation is ready to place a lot of money on the table to secure the fight.
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.
