By Scott Gilfoid: Matchroom Sport promoter Eddie Hearn thinks it’s only a matter of time before the IBO, WBA and WBO governing bodies step in to strip heavyweight champion Tyson Fury of his titles, as he’s got some life issues that he needs to take care before he can get back inside the ring. With Fury’s problems not being injury-related, there’s no way of knowing when he’ll be able to resume his boxing career, says Hearn.
The sanctioning bodies want to have their titles fought over, and they can’t do that with Fury sitting outside of the ring and not defending his belts. Fury beat Wladimir Klitschko by a 12 round unanimous decision 10 months ago, and he’s still not defended his titles.
Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) pulled out of training camp for his scheduled October 29 rematch against Wladimir at the Manchester Arena in Manchester, England.
Hearn said this to skysports.com:
“Yes, I do think Fury will be stripped. It’s been nearly a year since he’s boxed. The governing bodies want that belt to be active so over the next couple of weeks, the contenders will be putting pressure on the governing bodies. We don’t know how long Tyson will be out of the ring for, but the sport has got to go on and the governing bodies will want to get those belts active as soon as possible.”
It’s going to be interesting to see how long it takes for the sanctioning bodies to strop Fury of his IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight titles. If it takes them a long time to act, then there’s going to be a lot of angry contenders in those divisions upset at seeing their careers frozen without a chance to fight for a world title. Unfortunately, it’s common in boxing for champions to be inactive for long periods of time.
If the sanctioning bodies have their act together, they step in and strip the champion of the title so that other fighters can compete for the belt. However, some of the sanctioning bodies are slower to act than others.
“He needs to get the right treatment and help. They can’t put a time on when he’ll be back in the ring, and I think that’s one of the problems. If it was a straight-up injury, then they could say,” said Hearn about Fury.
It might be better if Fury just vacates his titles rather than waiting around for the sanctioning bodies to strip him of his traps. I’m just saying. If Fury doesn’t intend on getting back into the ring anytime soon, then he should just let the titles go, and focus on getting well. Fury’s trainer Peter Fury is confident that he’ll be able to win back his titles once he comes back from his difficult period in his life. If that’s the case, then Fury should have no problems recapturing his titles. But it would be better for boxing and for the contenders if Fury just gave up the belts rather than having this drag out for months. If takes a while for the IBO/WBA/WBO to strip Fury of his titles, then we won’t have title fights for those belts. Instead, we’ll only have IBF champion Anthony Joshua and WBC champ Deontay Wilder holding belts and defending them on a regular basis.