Joshua will need to face Charr-Ustinov vs. Oquendo winner eventually

By Boxing News - 11/25/2017 - Comments

Image: Joshua will need to face Charr-Ustinov vs. Oquendo winner eventually

By Scott Gilfoid: WBA heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua will eventually need to face the winner of tonight’s fight between Manuel Charr and Alexander Ustinov fight.

Ustinov (34-1, 25 KOs) is fighting Charr (30-4, 17 KOs) for the vacant WBA World heavyweight title in Oberhausen, Germany. The World Boxing Association is interested in reducing the number of champions in each division. Part of that plan obviously will involve Joshua, who holds the WBA Super World heavyweight title, fighting the winner of the Charr vs. Ustinov fight.

Joshua won’t necessarily fight the winner of that fight straightaway. #3 WBA Fred Oquendo will likely be he the one that faces the winner of the Charr-Ustinov fight. From there, you can expect the WBA to eventually order Joshua face the winner of the Oquendo vs. Charr-Ustinov winner. It’s going to be an ugly fight, but that’s how it goes. Joshua doesn’t want to give up his WBA belt or any of his titles. If Joshua keep the belts, it means he’ll periodically defend them against guys that the sanctioning bodies pick out.

It’ll be fun to watch Joshua fighting the winner of the Charr-Ustinov vs. Oquendo winner. I can see 80,000 boxing fans showing up to watch Joshua fight one of those guys in 2019. The good news is it probably won’t happen by next year. Oquendo will need to fight the winner of the Charr vs. Ustinov fight before the WBA gets around to ordering Joshua to fight the winner of those 2 fights.

The smart thing for Joshua to do would be for him to start dropping belts. Joshua no longer needs more than one title for him to be viewed as a champion. Having more than one title isn’t going to validate him in the minds of the boxing public. A champion is a champion. There are so many paper titles right now. Having more than one title works against a champion, given that they’re forced to make a lot of mandatory title defenses against guys that just don’t belong ranked at number 1. For example, we just saw WBC heavyweight champion Deontay Wilder fight his WBC mandatory challenger Bermane Stiverne, who hadn’t fought in 2 years. That was a horrible fight, and it was always going to be a bad one due to all the time that Stiverne had been out of the ring. WBO champion Joseph Parker recently made a title defense against mandatory challenger Hughie Fury, who hadn’t fought in 1 ½ years since struggling to beat journeyman Fred Kassi. Joshua can do more with his career if wins the titles, and then vacates them immediately instead of holding onto them like trinkets.

If Joshua is stubborn about not wanting to give up his WBA title, then one of these guys – Charr, Ustinov or Oquendo – is going to wind up getting rich fighting him. They’ll get a career high payday fighting Joshua and they’ll likely be able to retire off that money and live well for the remainder of their days. It’s a plus for whoever emerges as the WBA ‘regular’ champion from the Charr-Ustinov vs. Oquendo fights. I don’t think it necessarily helps Joshua to have to face the winner of those fights.