The likelihood of an August 14th fight between Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua just got a little longer, as Oleksandr Usyk, the former world cruiserweight champion, is no longer willing to wait for his heavyweight title shot. According to a demand letter sent by Usyk's attorneys to the WBO, Usyk is preparing to file a lawsuit unless he participates in the next WBO heavyweight championship fight. That can be accomplished in only two ways: current champion Anthony Joshua defends against Usyk rather than unifying with Fury, or the WBO stripping Joshua and sanctioning Usyk against someone else for the vacant title. That someone else would likely be Joe Joyce, whom Usyk has already defeated once. 

 

It was expected that Usyk, the WBO’s mandatory heavyweight contender, would wait for a four-belt world championship unification bout between Joshua and Tyson Fury to take place. But all heavyweight plans were thrown into disarray yesterday when an arbitrator ruled that Fury must honor a rematch obligation to Deontay Wilder before fighting Joshua. Currently, Joshua holds the WBO, IBF and WBA championships, with Fury holding the WBC version.  Fury won the title from Wilder but the contract for that fight contained a rematch clause. Fury and his promoters believed Wilder waited too long to invoke the rematch clause,  but the arbitrator determined otherwise in an unpublished decision that was issued yesterday.

 

Usyk is represented by veteran boxing attorneys John Hornewer and Patrick English. Boxingtalk has reviewed a letter written by English advising the WBO that Usyk may sue to enforce his rights. The letter states as follows [edited lightly to remove legal terms]: 

 

“Usyk has been the mandatory WBO contender since June 2019, approaching two full years. The last WBO mandatory was in September 2018. Yet Fury, Joshua, Wilder (perhaps) and those associated with them along with the WBO or simply ignoring Usyk’s rights.

 

“Fury and Wilder have been in arbitration for a very extended period. The arbitrator has now ruled, granting injunctive relief and requiring that the Fury side honor a contractual commitment to Wilder. While the Fury side professes surprises at this, it should be no surprise. Now we read that the Fury side is attempting to ‘buy off’ Wilder, a result which in our view would be a slap in the face to the arbitrator who found there to be irreparable harm [Editor’s note: this means the arbitrator ruled that a money payment would not fully compensate Wilder]. There are things we know about the evidence and things we do not. We believe that the contract which was upheld by the arbitrator did not require that the WBO belt be at stake. This takes us directly to the rights of Usyk.

 

“I was told by the WBO president that if a binding contract for Fury-Joshua was not produced by the end of last week (Thursday), the WBO would order the Joshua-Usyk mandatory… [but] clearly no binding contract exists and as yet the WBO has not directed the Joshua-Usyk  mandatory.

 

“We do not care if Fury fights Joshua. We do not care if he fights Deontay Wilder. We do care if either fight impairs in any way the right of Usyk to the next WBO title bout. We therefore demand that the WBO respect the rights of Usyk and immediately direct Joshua to fulfill his mandatory obligation or give up the title. We demand that the promoters and managers of Fury, Joshua and Wilder immediately cease any actions which could further delay Usyk’s mandatory title opportunity.”