Usyk and Fury may face in the ring in the near future, but the Ukrainian and his fellow world champion share a love for a Man Utd legend.
Oleksandr Usyk and Tyson Fury may have more in common than just their boxing world heavyweight titles, after the Ukrainian named his favourite football players.
After years of hoping that the title unification fight between Fury and Anthony Joshua would get agreed, only to see it fail over and over again, fight fans have moved on.
Now everyone wants to see the undefeated Gypsy King in the unification fight with Usyk, who beat AJ twice last year to become world champion.
Back in September, Fury called his would be opponent a “little b***h, p***y boy,” after the Ukrainian, who has literally been on the frontline during his country’s war with Russia, said he wouldn’t be able to fight in December due to injuries.
With the WBA, IBF, WBO and Ring Magazine champion unable to fight at the end of last year, Fury instead fought Dereck Chisora for the third time, because that’s the fight everyone wanted to see.
At the end of last year the fight was reportedly close to be being agreed but, in typical fashion in men’s boxing these days, we’ve heard nothing about it since.
Whilst their rivalry gets more heated, the two men seem to have little other than their boxing in common, but that’s not completely true.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, the 35-year-old revealed that Wayne Rooney is amongst his favourite footballers, although not number one.
“My favourite Ukrainian is Andriy Shevchenko,” Usyk understandably said of the former AC Milan striker.
“When I was a boy I adored Gabriel Batistuta. Among English players I admired Wayne Rooney. My final answer – Batistuta.”
Serie A icon Batistuta is Usyk’s favourite ever footballer. Image: Alamy
There is simply no doubting Usyk’s excellent taste in strikers, having named Shevchenko and Rooney behind Batistuta as his favourites.
The former Argentina forward was an icon in the 90s and early 00s in Serie A, playing for Fiorentina, Roma and Inter Milan, in a time when Italian football was the leader in Europe.
Batistuta helped fire Roma to only their third league title in the 2000/01 season, and they’ve not won the league in the 22 years since.
He famously fired home a bullet of a goal against United in the Champions League at Old Trafford, in March 2000, although Sir Alex Ferguson’s side went on to win.
Fury is well known to support United and Rooney has been just as public with his support for the Manchester born undefeated heavyweight.
In fact, the 34-year-old has revealed that he’s going to be bringing the DC United manager in to help him spar ahead of the eventual fight with Usyk.
Perhaps England’s all time top goalscorer will feel more sympathy with the Ukrainian and will hit back a little harder, now he knows he’s got more than one fan who’s a heavyweight champion.
