By Scott Gilfoid: Well, it looks like IBF/IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (25-0, 18 KOs) is about to lose his first title without even throwing a punch. The International Boxing Federation has ordered the 27-year-old Fury to fight #1 IBF contender Vyacheslav Glazkov (21-0-1, 13 KOs), who is the mandatory challenger.
The IBF isn’t going to let Fury put that fight aside while he fights former champion Wladimir Klitschko in a rematch. As such, it’s looking like Fury will either vacate his IBF title or get stripped of it by the IBF. Either way, it’s not a big deal for Fury, because he would still have the IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight titles in his possession.
Surely, Fury isn’t going to walk away from a big money rematch against Wladimir to take the small money to fight little known Glazkov, and I’m not sure that Fury can do that even if he wanted to. Wladimir had a rematch clause in his contract for his fight with Fury last Saturday night, and I don’t think it allows for Fury to face anyone in between his fight.
It’s bad news for Glazkov if Fury chooses to vacate or let the IBF strip him of the title, because Glazkov would likely wind up facing #4 IBF Charles Martin for the vacant heavyweight title in what would likely be a smaller money fight for Glazkov. It’s also a 50-50 fight that Glazkov could surely lose.
Glazkov already has three very, very questionable decisions on his resume against Derric Rossy, Malik Scott and Steve Cunningham. The fight against Scott was scored a 10 round draw in 2013, but a lot of boxing fans saw Scott winning the fight.
A lot of fans also saw Glazkov losing to Rossy and Cunningham. I personally had Glazkov losing all three of those fights. I see his record as 19-3, 13 KOs). A fight against Charles Martin will be a very tough one for Glazkov because he’s not proven himself to be even in the same level as Malik Scott and Rossy in my opinion.
The problem with Fury winning all of Wladimir’s titles last Saturday night is now he’s stuck being ordered to fight guys that he gains very little from fighting. To be sure, Fury could fight a guy like Glazkov if he wanted to, but what’s the point? The money that Fury can make in a rematch with Wladimir is likely much better.
Further, Fury can make big money in fights against WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder, Anthony Joshua, Dillian Whyte and David Haye. Why would Fury want to fight a guy like Glazkov? That’s the real issue for Fury; him now having to make decisions whether to defend his title against little known mandatory challengers or take the bigger money to fight the popular guys.
Wladimir was able to hold onto his titles all these years by fighting the less than popular mandatory challengers that popped up every once in a while. I don’t know if Wladimir really cared much whether his mandatory challengers were popular though, because he was facing a lot of obscure guys when he defended against his voluntary challengers. If you look at Wladimir’s resume in the last 10 years, you see a lot of fighters like Alex Leapai, Jean Marc Mormeck, Francesco Pianeta, Mariusz Wach, Tony Thompson, Samuel Peter, Hasim Rahman, Calvin Brock and Ray Austin.
If Glazkov wins the IBF title, he’ll likely be seen by a lot of fans as a paper champion. In can’t see Glazkov holding onto the IBF title for long. If he can’t even beat the likes of Rossy without controversy, then what does that tell you about Glazkov?
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