Oleksandr Usyk was briefly the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world.
In Could, he defeated Tyson Fury to unify the WBC, WBO, WBA and IBF heavyweight belts – the 4 main championships.
His tenure as undisputed lasted till September. Usyk was dedicated to his December 21 rematch with Tyson Fury and subsequently couldn’t make a compulsory defence of the IBF belt.
That noticed interim titlist Daniel Dubois turn into the holder of the total IBF heavyweight world championship, which he defended in his victory over Anthony Joshua.
As soon as Usyk and Fury have fought their rematch in December, there may very well be the chance for the winner to compete in one other undisputed heavyweight world title battle, this time in opposition to Dubois later in 2025.
The WBC would help one other unification for all 4 of the main heavyweight belts. In that state of affairs, the sanctioning physique wouldn’t impose a direct necessary obligation on the Usyk-Fury victor.
“We are not promoters so we cannot promote fights. We have been, as the WBC, extremely supportive of unification fights and undisputed champions. I would love to see Dubois fight the winner and, without a doubt, that fight is sensational,” Mauricio Sulaiman, the WBC president, mentioned.
“All of us ought to attempt to make that occur.
“The reason for the organisation to exist is to give boxing the best fights possible. The reason for the mandatory contender rule, which the WBC instituted, was to give the best challenger the opportunity to fight the champion and not allow the champion to duck him,” he continued.
“It is not to have a mandatory just for the sake of it. At this moment, there is no greater fight than Usyk, the champion, against Fury, the former champion – simple as that.”
He’s glad that the highest finish of the heavyweight division is remaining energetic.
“Eight of the top 10 fighters fought in Riyadh season,” Sulaiman mentioned. “So all the heavyweights have been fighting each other and it’s been a great, great experiment.
“We had Tyson Fury in opposition to Usyk – it was postponed so it took somewhat bit longer – and now we’ve a rematch. Tyson Fury in opposition to Usyk, that is December 21. We’ll see on the WBC conference what’s the standing [for their mandatory heavyweight challenger] however we’ll see.
“We don’t want to interfere with an undisputed or a unified champion that comes out on December 21, and pick a mandatory just like that. The WBC is set to try and make the best fights possible. Now that it’s happening,” he added.
Supporting efforts to make an undisputed heavyweight championship battle has lengthy been certainly one of Sulaiman’s insurance policies.
“We were always trying to make [Deontay] Wilder against Joshua for the undisputed at one time, then Fury against Joshua, then Fury against Usyk,” he mentioned.
“It took a long, long time. Dillian Whyte was the last mandatory, after that came very big fights, which the WBC decided that there were no greater challenger than the ones that were taking place.
“There is no such thing as a want to call a compulsory, particularly when there was nice exercise within the top-ranked fighters.
“We’re not going to go and step in and disrupt the greatness of the division.”