Four-belt heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua has admitted that he would be prepared to vacate his WBO belt in order to ensure his discussed two-bout deal with Tyson Fury goes ahead.
Joshua beat IBF mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev before Christmas, and now has an obligation to fight Oleksandr Usyk to defend his WBO title.
However, Joshua is set to fight WBC champion Fury in 2021 at least twice, which means that Usyk’s fight for the WBO title could come against another opponent to settle a vacancy. The WBO have already made it clear they are not willing to excuse Joshua to allow him to fight Fury.
One option may be for the British pair to offer to face Usyk after their two fights, in exchange for him foregoing his right to take on Joshua first, but the Ukranian’s camp so far seems reluctant to cut a deal.
Joshua has now suggested that he could first fight Fury and give up his belt, and then return to Usyk or whomever holds the WBO belt at the time in order to finally achieve his goal of holding each major heavyweight title as an undisputed champion.
“Will people care if I have to lose a belt to Usyk? Will I have to give one up? I am not too sure yet,” Joshua told The Sun.
“I don’t want to, because it is ‘the road to undisputed’. But I know that, when I win, I will go back and fight for that belt anyway — that will be my goal.
“I want to fight Fury, beat him again in the rematch — two difficult hurdles, serious fights — then I will go straight back to try to fight for that title again.”
Nobody has unified the division since Lennox Lewis 20 years ago, and the difficulty of juggling multiple mandatory challengers — as well as the politics of priority, sanctioning fees and more — is why it becomes an increasingly rare sight across all of boxing's weight classes, the further we move away from the days of "one weight, one world champion".
Though Joshua and promoter Eddie Hearn refuse to give up on their goal, and Fury has also expressed an interest in unifying the entire division, it looks certain to be a tough road to undisputed glory no matter how things ultimately pan out.