By Scott Gilfoid: IBF president Daryl Peoples has given newly crowned IBF heavyweight champion Charles Martin (23-0-1, 21 KOs) one year to defend his title against his next opponent after winning the belt last Saturday night with an impressive third round stoppage win over #1 IBF Vyacheslav Glazkov (21-1-1, 13 KOs) at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
This news has the recently stripped champion Tyson Fury up in arms, yapping left and right, as he feels that the IBF wants to keep their IBF title in the United States rather than have someone based outside of the U.S to hold it.
The IBF’s headquarters is in Springfield, New Jersey, USA. Fury captured the IBF title last November after beating the longstanding IBF champion Wladimir Klitschko by a narrow 12 round decision. Fury was ordered to defend his IBF title against the mandatory challenger Glazkov.
However, because Fury made the decision to agree to a rematch clause in his contract with Wladimir, it meant that he had to face him immediately and couldn’t defend his IBF title. In hindsight, Fury arguably made a blunder in agreeing to the rematch contract because he was the WBO Mandatory challenger, which meant he didn’t have to sign a rematch clause if he didn’t want to. If Fury didn’t agree to the rematch clause, he would have been able to move on after beating Wladimir and defend his IBF title as ordered by the IBF against Glazkov.
“You know what the IBF can do… I’ve already put their belt in the toilet,” Fury said to skysports.com. “What gets me is why take it off the linear heavyweight champion. It’s their loss. It’s no longer my concern what they want to do with their belt and who they give it to. But the International Boxing Federation want that title back in America and it’s going to stay there for a while.”
Oh brother, Fury is seriously bellyaching about this. He needs to keep a stiff upper lip and sit down and drink a good cup of coffee so that he can see things clearly. The IBF isn’t giving Martin special treatment. He’s a new a champion that just beat the mandatory challenger Glazkov. I mean, if Fury had simply done what the International Boxing Federation had asked him to in facing the mandatory Glazkov, then he would be sitting in the same position as Charles Martin right now with an entire year before he would need to defend his IBF belt.
Instead, Fury doesn’t have the IBF title any longer because he has to face Wladimir in a contractually bound rematch. Heck, the IBF didn’t tell Fury to sign a rematch clause with Wladimir. That was Fury’s move. If Fury didn’t agree to the rematch clause for the Wladimir fight last November, then he’d still have his IBF title right now if he could have beaten Glazkov in his mandatory defense. I’m not sure that Fury could have beaten Glazkov, but we’ll never know for sure.
I'll fight anybody as I'm a bad man, ask @dellboychisora pic.twitter.com/uxETIIO5KU
— Gypsy King (@Tyson_Fury) January 20, 2016
“Martin won the fight,” IBF president Daryl Peoples told ESPN Deportes. “So let him enjoy his new belt and he’ll have a year to make his mandatory fight. By next week we will know who will be positioned for his mandatory challenger.”
I agree with Mr. Peoples. The 6’5” Martin did what he had to do in beating Glazkov by a 3rd round stoppage, so now he has a year before he has to defend his title. That doesn’t mean that Martin is going to sit for a year doing nothing.
Obviously, Martin’s management is going to look for a nice money unification fight against either WBC champion Deontay Wilder or Fury himself. As such, instead of Fury bellyaching about the IBF giving Martin a year to defend his title, Fury should be on the horn talking to his promoter Mick Hennessy about having him immediately contract Martin’s management to tell them that they’ll face him in a unification fight if they get past Wladimir in a rematch in the first half of 2016.
Fury, 27, should worry about winning his rematch with Wladimir instead of crying about Charles Martin being given a year to defend his IBF title. Fury might lose to Wladimir in the rematch and find himself back in the contender ranks. In fact, that’s what I see happening. If Fury had beaten the IBF mandatory challenger Glazkov, he’d be in the same position that Martin is in now. Never the less, Fury royally blew it by signing the rematch clause with Wladimir instead of just signing a regular contract for the fight. David Haye thinks Fury made a huge blunder by agreeing to the rematch clause with Wladimir when he didn’t have to as the WBO mandatory challenger.
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