Tony Bellew has reiterated that he will not travel to Russia to defend his world cruiserweight title.
Bellew enjoyed a dream WBC title win by knocking out Ilunga Makabu at Goodison Park last weekend and now finds a pair of Russians as his likeliest challengers.
Grigory Drozd (40-1) previously held the WBC belt while Denis Lebedev (29-2) has the WBA and IBF equivalents, but Bellew used his post-fight speech to insist he wouldn't travel to their homeland.
He has since exclusively told Sky Sports: "Listen, I'm not going to Russia and my WBC title is not going under any circumstances. Nobody is forcing my hand to go to Russia.
"Not for Drozd or Lebedev. I will fight Lebedev anywhere, whether it be England or the USA."
Russian heavyweight Alexander Povetkin recently failed a drugs test forcing the postponement of his fight against Deontay Wilder.
Bellew believes his stature should be enough to tempt Drozd or Lebedev away from their comfort zone.
"I'm the biggest name in the cruiserweight division, it's as simple as that," he said.
"I'm the guy they all want to fight because, at the end of the day, they're all making peanuts and I'm the money man of the cruiserweight division. There's not a man in the cruiserweight division who could sell 5,000 tickets, never mind 20,000 at Goodison Park.
"Ideally, my dream is to unify the cruiserweight division at Goodison against Lebedev."