Frank Warren Gives Take on Tyson Fury Title Mess
Dec 5, 2015 • 6:43 AM ET
By Frank Warren
No sooner has he wrapped Wladimir Klitschko’s WBO, IBF, IBO and WBA Super belts around his waist then Tyson Fury is now poised to do a Riddick Bowe and toss one of them into the bin.
The smarting Klitschko has announced he will exercise his option for a contractual right to a re-match and Fury says he is happy to accommodate him. But along come the IBF to order him to first make a mandatory defence against a different Ukrainian, their number one contender Vyacheslav Glazkov, who is the Florida-based charge of the ‘grand dame’ of US boxing, the ever-feisty Kathy Duva.
Aware that Fury has a rematch cause with Klitschko, she asked the IBF to waive any period of negotiation and go straight to purse bids. The IBF have complied and set the deadline for next Friday.
Fury says he won’t be hustled into fighting Glazkov, so you can expect him to vacate the IBF title and his management team say he will bin the belt publicly at a press conference, just as Bowe did WBC heavyweight strap rather than take an ordered fight with Lennox Lewis.
In this event the unbeaten Glazkov will meet the similarly undefeated IBF’s fourth-ranked Charles Martin, a southpaw from Missouri who is looked after by Al Haymon.
So with Deontay Wilder wearing the WBC crown the increasingly fragmented fight game will be back to having three world heavyweight champions again. Brilliant, eh?
