By Charles Brun: After knocking out Kubrat Pulev last Saturday night, IBF/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua appears to on his way to a unification clash against Tyson Fury in the first half of 2021, but he WON’T be doing it with the WBO title up for grabs.
It’s not a big deal if Joshua and Fury don’t have the WBO title at stake for their unification fight, because it’s not as if that will validate the contest, and make it bigger in the eyes of the fans.
There’s no gain on Joshua and Fury’s part if they have all four of the belts on the line when they battle in early 2021.
Whether there’s one title or four for the Joshua vs. Fury match, the boxing public doesn’t care. That’s Joshua and his promoter Eddie Hearn’s hang-up in feeling that they absolutely must have all four titles on the line for the Fury fight.
According to Michal Benson, WBO president Paco Valcarcel won’t let Joshua face Fury next with their title on the line. Joshua must face WBO mandatory challenger Oleksandr Usyk next or vacate the strap.
The WBO has already given Joshua two exceptions to steer around mandatory challenger Usyk (18-0, 13 KOs) for his rematch against Andy Ruiz Jr last December and last Saturday night against Pulev (28-2, 14 KOs). They’re not going to let AJ put Oleksandr on deep freeze for the entire year of 2021.
AJ and his promoters want Fury next
It’s obviously no big deal for Joshua, Fury, and the promoters if Usyk sits and ages for a year because they’re not the ones that are losing out.
Usyk is the one that will lose money and putting his career at risk by waiting for a year to face the winner of the two Joshua vs. Fury fights.
It’s risky for Usyk to wait until 2022 for his mandated WBO title shot because he’ll need to stay busy with his career and fight at least once, if not twice. As we saw in Usyk’s narrow 12 round decision win over high-level journeyman Dereck Chisora last October, Oleksandr doesn’t have the size or power at heavyweight to conclusively beat the larger fighters.
So unless Usyk sits and waits for a year or takes on two bums in 2021, he could get beaten before he ever gets his mandated title shot against Joshua. We all know what happens if Usyk loses to someone. He’ll no longer be the WBO mandatory challenger, and his chances of getting a major payday will be over.
Additionally, there are zero guarantees that the winner of the two Joshua-Fury fights will even bother to face Usyk in 2022.
If Usyk waits like a good one until AJ and Fury fight twice, what happens if the eventual winner of those two fights decides they don’t want to bother defending the WBO title against Usyk? He brings nothing to the table in terms of fan interest?
Usyk would be taking a risk by waiting
If the WBO champion vacates the title without fighting Usyk, it means that the Ukrainian fighter will have waited for nothing. That’s why it would be a foolish move on Usyk’s part to agree to step aside until 2022 for Joshua and Fury to fight twice.
There’s too much risk involved for Usyk to agree to that, and he could wind up fighting for the vacant WBO belt at the end of it against the likes of Joe Joyce. It would be a bad deal for Usyk.
Joshua and his promoters at Matchroom Boxing want to set-up two lucrative fights against Fury while Usyk is supposed to wait for another year for his title shot. Boxing is supposed to be a sport, but what we see here is the business/entertainment side interjecting and putting Usyk, a non-star, in the backseat.
Apart from Joshua being stripped of his WBO title if he fails to face Usyk, it’s possible that Matchroom can make it worthwhile for him to wait on the sidelines for a year if they offer him a big enough step aside fee.
It looks like the stage is set for the biggest Heavyweight championship fight since Ali-Frazier in 1971, when @Tyson_Fury meets @anthonyfjoshua for the undisputed crown.
We at Top Rank will start on Monday working to put that fight together.
— Bob Arum (@BobArum) December 12, 2020
If Usyk agrees to step aside, Joshua and Fury can fight with the WBO title on the line. If Usyk doesn’t agree to step aside, the WBO will need to be vacated by Joshua if he insists on circumventing his responsibilities of defending it against the 2012 Olympic gold medalist Usyk.
Why the need for instant gratification?
From this writer’s perspective, I don’t know what the mad hurry is all about for the Joshua vs. Fury fight. There’s a gluttonous aspect about this need to ignore Joshua’s commitment to defending his title against WBO mandatory Usyk and skip ahead as if he’s not even there.
What happens if Joshua and Hearn decide they want to continue to ignore mandatory challengers and make them wait for years while they fight whoever? Won’t that make a mockery of the sport?
What if the NFL teams decided to ignore their set schedule and play against whoever they wanted? The league would no longer be viewed in the same light by fans, as they would see it more as a business and less as a sport.
The sanctioning bodies like the WBO need to be the parental figure to keep the gluttonous promoters and fighters from doing what they want and ignoring their commitments to the mandatory challengers.
The way that Joshua, Fury, and the promoters are acting, it’s as if that the Josua-Fury might take place within the next six months, or else everything falls apart in their careers.
We need to see Joshua, Fury, and their promoters show a sense of maturity and put off this urgent need for immediate gratification. The Joshua vs. Fury fight will still be there in the second half of 2021, as long as AJ successfully defeats Usyk.