Heavyweight king Oleksandr Usyk has been painted with a rather unfavourable brush, accused of swerving his leading challenger after vacating his WBO world title.
The Ukrainian elected to relinquish his strap earlier this month, not long after being ordered to face mandatory contender Fabio Wardley.
Prior to that, Wardley had claimed his WBO interim title with an 11th round stoppage victory over former world champion Joseph Parker, who, it was later revealed, had tested positive for cocaine on the day of their enthralling encounter last month.
As a result of Usyk vacating his belt, Wardley has since been upgraded from interim to full WBO world champion, with a maiden defence of his title expected to arrive next spring.
That first defence, however, is unlikely to be a unification against Usyk, who still holds the WBC, IBF and WBA world titles following his fifth round stoppage victory over Daniel Dubois last July.
With that win, the vastly accomplished technician achieved his ambition of becoming a three-time undisputed champion.
The 38-year-old has left himself with very little to prove, as with two victories over Dubois, Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, respectively, the Olympic gold medallist has firmly rubber-stamped his supremacy in this heavyweight era.
But despite that, the manager of Wardley, Michael Ofo, nonetheless believes that Usyk is actively avoiding his big-punching client.
In an interview with talkSport, Ofo explained that, before Usyk vacated his title, an agreement was put in place for the formidable southpaw to face Wardley.
“Before the [Parker] fight, Usyk’s team put an offer out there. I won’t go into too much detail, but we agreed to everything in principle.
“All of the terms they wanted, we agreed to them, and then they backed out. To be honest, I thought that Usyk was going to take the fight.
“I thought he was the type of champion who doesn’t duck challenges.”
Since vacating the belt, Usyk has confirmed that the Wardley fight does not interest him at this moment in time and has instead called out Deontay Wilder.
