06 February 2024 , 15:55
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Oleksandr Usyk should have been pacing the corridors of a Kiev hospital instead of preparing to fight Tyson Fury.
The heavyweight world champion's wife Yekaterina fell pregnant with the couple's fourth child early last year. And with her heavyweight husband's undisputed clash with Fury pencilled in for two days before Christmas, she believed he would be home to support his expanding family.
But Fury's lacklustre performance against Francis Ngannou last October forced him to push back the richest fight in boxing by a further two months. That left 37-year-old Usyk holed up in his Spanish training camp while his daughter Maria was born - five days before Fury pulled out of the fight which has now been rescheduled for May 18.
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"I sacrificed all the dates we used to spend with my family," Usyk said. "Christmas, New Year, my birthday, my son's birthday, the birthday of my second son and the birth of my daughter. "I was supposed to be somewhere around my wife, not in the room, but walking around waiting for her to give birth to my daughter.
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"I want to go back home, to hug my daughter, to thank my wife, to spend two or three days at home and then come back to camp."
Usyk was almost the last to learn his fight with Fury had been postponed again. He was landing the final blows of his final sparring session last Friday when Fury revealed a cut above his right eye had left him with no choice but to withdraw.
But Usyk simply shrugged his shoulders and returned to work. "I was already in the ring when the news occurred, when I finished the last round," he said. "Sergey [Lapin, Usyk's team manager] came up to me, smiling and feeling uncomfortable. He said we had some sort of news; I smiled and went back to the training, working with the boxing bag.
"Even my wife found out first because I was training. After sparring I was in the ring and information started to come through and I had a lot of messages on my phone. But my wife was not angry that I had missed the birth. It's my job and she is very smart. I am at my training camp and my wife says, 'No problem, you have to work, Alex'."
Fury now has a little over three months to recover before the rivals attempt again to put their collective four belts on the line in Saudi Arabia. Should the Brit fail to hold up his end of the bargain, it will cost him a staggering £10million from his fight purse.
"We have to treat this more seriously. This is a very important and anticipated fight for the whole world and we have to treat this professionally. If someone is trying to play me, they are playing by my rules," Usyk added.