An official date for the bout hasn’t been set, but Coppinger noted it could take place on Dec. 23 or at some point in January.

The Fury-Ngannou bout is also taking place in Saudi Arabia’s capital city, Riyadh. It will be a 10-round fight with the traditional 10-point scoring system, but no titles will be on the line.

Friday’s reported agreement comes after WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman said earlier this week the organization wouldn’t order a mandatory challenger for the heavyweight title because it didn’t want to stand in the way of a possible Fury-Usyk matchup.

In an interview with Rio Ferdinand for TNT Sports Boxing, Fury said he was open to fighting Usyk “if the money’s” right.

The Gypsy King immediately followed that up by insulting Usyk for having “zero personality” and being half his size.

Fury and Usyk have been circling each other for some time. They appeared to be on track for a bout earlier this year, but talks broke down between the two camps.

Usyk’s promoter, Alex Krassyuk, told John Dennen of Sky Sports in March that the inclusion of a rematch clause was when things “exploded” between Fury and Usyk.

“The discussion about the rematch split was just the point where Usyk was fed up with everything,” Dennen explained. “He said, ‘How many more times do I have to bow my head in front of Tyson. Why should I do this? It’s enough. Either he accepts what I say or I leave’. Tyson did not accept it and he left.”

A meeting between Fury and Usyk will pit arguably the two best heavyweight boxers in the world against each other for the first time. Fury is 33-0-1 in 34 career bouts and has held the WBC title since beating Deontay Wilder in February 2020. He also won The Ring heavyweight crown in that bout but vacated it in August 2022 when he retired from competition.

Fury’s retirement lasted two months when it was announced he was defending the WBC championship against Derek Chisora on Dec. 3. He won the bout via 10th-round TKO.

Usyk is a perfect 21-0 with 14 knockouts in his career. He won The Ring heavyweight title and retained the WBA, IBF, WBO, and IBO titles when he defeated Anthony Joshua on Aug. 20, 2022.

The 36-year-old successfully defended all of his titles on Aug. 26 when he beat Daniel Dubois via ninth-round knockout.