Saudi Arabia’s Turki Al-Sheikh has revealed the full card for the February 17 undisputed heavyweight title fight between Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk, featuring two additional championship fights and a host of notable fighters.
The (other) featured attraction of the night sees former cruiserweight champions Jai Opetaia (24-0, 19 KO) and Mairis Briedis (28-2, 20 KO) once again square off for the now vacant IBF title . An injury kept this rematch on ice for over a year and seemed destined for failure after the IBF stripped Opetaia and ordered Briedis to face “Zurdo” Ramirez for the title.
News broke over the weekend that Ramirez would challenge Arsen Goulamirian for the WBA belt in March, so we’re back to square one. I’d still love to see Opetaia and Briedis run it, so I’m not complaining.
Also on the line are Joe Cordina’s (17-0, 9 KO) previously announced super featherweight title defense against Anthony Cacace (21-0, 7 KO) and the return of Sergey Kovalev (35-4-1, 29 KO), who makes his second appearance in the last four years against Robin Sirwan Safar (16-0, 12 KO). The poster lists the latter as a light heavyweight fight, but Safar has never fought at 175 and Kovalev has claimed that he will be campaigning at 200 from now on, so it is almost certainly a cruiserweight fight.
Isaac Lowe (24-2-3, 8 KOs) also sees action against Hasibullah Ahmadi (16-1, 5 KOs), while TBA runs a supersized challenge against Moses Itauma, Bakhodir Jalolov and David Nyika. Itauma has a standing order to challenge Solomon Dacres for the British title, but if they haven’t resolved it by now, I’m not convinced they will do so with only a month until fight night.
