The WBC have confirmed they will sanction a third fight between their champion Tyson Fury and the man he dethroned in February 2020, Deontay Wilder, as the long-planned four-belt unification between Fury and Anthony Joshua appears increasingly likely to be dead in the water.
Fury and Wilder fought to a draw in their first bout before a seventh-round stoppage secured the belt for the Brit in the rematch. The return clash came with a rematch clause which meant a trilogy fight was likely before the end of 2020 until the COVID-19 pandemic made things far more complex.
It appeared as though the fight would land in December, which would have coincided with Joshua's mandatory defence of his WBA, WBO and IBF titles against Kubrat Pulev. However, while "AJ" made do with a limited gate due to crowd restrictions, those in charge of Fury and Wilder's careers could not settle on a venue unless they could sell a certain amount of tickets and the bout fizzled out.
Fury then moved on to setting up the agreed battle for undisputed glory with Joshua while his US promoter Bob Arum maintained Wilder's rematch clause expired in October. However, an arbitrator has ruled that was not the case and ordered the third Fury-Wilder fight to happen by September 15.
Amid talk that the trilogy could happen in Las Vegas on July 24 at the Allegiant Stadium, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman told The Daily Mail that the body approves of either fight for Fury's first defence.
“Yes, we will sanction Fury v Wilder on request,” he said. “We are on board with Tyson and Anthony Joshua for the undisputed title but a fight between our distinguished current and former heavyweight champions is also an outstanding event.”
If we go get Fury-Wilder 3 in July, Joshua's likely next move is his WBO mandatory Oleksandr Usyk, who was initially set to face Joe Joyce for an interim version of the title while waiting for the Joshua-Fury unification to take place.
Fury and Joshua would then presumably be able to look at a superfight at the end of 2021, though it's unlikely all four major sanctioning bodies would continue to be patient enough to allow a first undisputed heavyweight champion since Lennox Lewis over 20 years ago, in that scenario.