Slightly more than one month after becoming undisputed heavyweight champion with a win over Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk has announced that he will vacate the IBF championship. The Dec. 21 rematch between Usyk and Fury will now just be for the unified (WBA, WBO and WBC) heavyweight championship. As a result of Usyk vacating the title, Daniel Dubois has been elevated from interim to full IBF champion.
Usyk announced his plan to vacate the belt on social media Tuesday afternoon.
The news is not entirely unexpected, though it may be frustrating for fans who have longed for years to see an undisputed four-belt champion in boxing's glamour division. Ahead of the first meeting between Usyk and Fury, the IBF made it clear that the winner would need to prioritize a long overdue IBF mandatory title defense over a rematch.
With a rematch clause already in place between Usyk and Fury and the tens of millions of dollars involved, there was never a chance that the winner would be doing anything other than taking part in the rematch or retiring.
Initially, it seemed the IBF would strip Usyk ahead of the bout between mandatory challenger Filip Hrgovic and Daniel Dubois on June 1. That proved to be a little too soon after Usyk's win and the IBF instead put an interim title up for grabs, which Dubois won in a dominant performance.
On Wednesday, Dubois vs. Joshua was formally announced, with Dubois putting his newly-acquired world title on the line.
Whether the winner of the Dubois vs. Joshua fight would eventually fight the winner of the rematch between Fury and Usyk is still to be seen, but there will undoubtedly be interest from the boxing community in crowning an undisputed champion once again.
