Let’s Try And Make Sense of Boxing’s Heavyweight Division
Ah, boxing. A sport that consists of punching another person in the head for minutes at a time and then months in between fights spent scratching one’s own. Four major organisations all chasing their own interests and ignoring each other. Like when the WBA stalled on sanctioning the proposed Joshua-Klitschko bout even though it’s arguably the best possible matchup in the heavyweight division right now. Hmm but the WBA don’t rank Joshua even though he’s the IBF belt holder. How exactly does that happen? Mate… this is boxing.
A few weeks ago we published this doozy, looking at the shambolic state of heavyweight boxing with a bit of optimism for the direction it’s finally headed in. We’re starting to see the right kinds of fighters emerge at the top, those that are willing to fight whoever the best challenger may be. Right now Tyson Fury has left two vacant belts behind him, the WBA and WBO, with the IBF having already been claimed by Joshua after Fury was stripped for understandably preferring a rematch with Klitschko (the one that never happened) instead of defending it. Meanwhile the WBC is held by Deontay Wilder who’s currently nursing a broken hand and is out of action for a little while longer yet.
Well, in the last few days and weeks we’ve seen that future begin to take shape. The outlines have been pencilled in and colours are being mixed. By the end of the year we’ll have seen several fights with big heavyweight ramifications, so here’s a look at what we might expect from the finished product on the canvas.
WBO – WORLD BOXING ORGANISATION
Champion: Vacant
Title Fight: Joseph Parker vs Andy Ruiz, December 10
Major Challengers: Joseph Parker, Andy Ruiz, David Haye
One of Tyson Fury’s two lost belts, the fact that this one was suddenly on the line caused a change in tack from Joseph Parker and his team. Instead of pursuing that IBF mandatory challenge against Anthony Joshua, he could instead aim for the WBO, which he could fight for as the favoured guy. Parker is the top ranked challenger for this bad boy, so the WBO were always likely to include him in discussions for however they’d reallocate it. With the second ranked boxer being Klitschko, and he seemingly preferring to chase the WBA belt or a go against AJ for the IBF – not to mention being injured – that allowed for Andy Ruiz as the third man up to take the ticket. So long as the WBO respect their own rankings, this was as good of a title fight as they could hope for. So they gave it the big green stamp.
There’s been a bit of drama as to whether the fight will be held in New Zealand or America but that’s seemingly decided now and for the accountants to polish off. Parker is pretty inexperienced to be fighting for a world championship but then so were AJ and DW to be fair. And Parker has a better looking record in terms of guys he’s beaten than Andy Ruiz, who is every bit as raw if not more so. Both are undefeated.
Meaning that despite what’s on the line it ain’t really a glamour fight, which is why there was talk that the WBO would rather a four-man eliminator instead. That didn’t come to fruition and the top prize will be at stake, but it sounds more than likely that a quick defence will be called upon too. That shapes to be against David Haye, who is fourth in the WBO and himself trying to resurrect his career. Hughie Fury, the younger brother of, is fifth and another outside contender. The defence is expected to be called upon within six months, which is normal enough.
A further thing to be aware of is that if Tyson Fury returns to boxing within a year, he will automatically be considered the mandatory challenger for the WBO belt that he was stripped of.
IBF -- INTERNATIONAL BOXING FEDERATION
Champion: Anthony Joshua
Title Fight: Joshua vs Eric Molina, December 10
Major Challengers: Eric Molina, Wladimir Klitschko, Kubrat Pulev
Joshua won the title when he beat Charles Martin in April for the vacant belt and he defended that title ten weeks later in beating up on Dominic Breazeale. Both of those men now linger fairly low on the IBF rankings and Joshua had been lining up a potential unification bout against Wladimir Klitschko – unification in that they had hoped the WBA would also be on the line. It was not and the fight never happened anyway with Wlad getting injured. It’ll likely happen next year, no worries there coz it’ll be a better spectacle once it’s had some time to simmer.
Joshua has always planned to fight again late this year and his mandatory defence isn’t due for a few more months so he’s free to take on whoever he wants. Joseph Parker holds that mandatory but he now looks unlikely to cash it in given he’s going after the WBO and will be called upon to defend that, leaving the Joshua-Klitschko thing free to happen concurrently. Probably. You can’t ever be too sure about this crap.
So for his December 10 defence, Joshua has confirmed he’ll take on Eric Molina, who is ranked eighth in the IBF. 34 year old Texan, knows how to take a punch but his credentials lie more on the battler side of things. Still Joshua’s toughest challenge to date, but one who he should get by. Molina’s three pro defeats have all come by knockouts: one against Deontay Wilder in 2015 (with the WBC on the line) another versus Chris Arreola in 2012, plus a decking in his pro debut back in 2007. Because of the stakes on the line with what’ll be a massive purse in the Wlad fight, this was probably about as risky as Eddie Hearn and Anthony Joshua were willing to go.
Keep an eye on Kubrat Pulev though, the Bulgarian fighter, who is targeting a go against Samuel Peter early in December and if he continues to win then he, as the second ranked challenger, stands a very good shot at claiming Parker’s mandatory if that slot becomes available. Pulev’s lone defeat as a pro came against Wladimir Klitschko in November 2014.
WBA – WORLD BOXING ASSOCIATION
Champion: Vacant
Title Fight: It’s Complicated…
Major Challengers: Wladimir Klitschko, Luis Ortiz, Anthony Joshua
Here we have the slackers of the pack. The WBA is widely acknowledged as an utter mess, which is what makes Klitschko’s pursuit of it so odd. The WBA are not the only organisation that offers different tiers of champs but they’re the only one that takes them so serious… and so messily. As well as the regular champion they also offer a super champion belt, which is for WBA holders that also claim other major belts. So if one goes and unifies a couple of them, they promote another regular champ in their place. Then there’s also the interim title.
An interim title that up until very recently was held by Luis Ortiz, the Cuban pugilist known as ‘King Kong’. This dude can hit, no doubt about it. He’s one of the more feared guys in the division right now but his time at the top has been weird to say the least. Partly because of his and his team’s own doing and partly, to be fair, because others were dodging him. He won the WBA interim in 2014 but lost it due to a positive steroid test. He’s come back from that and hasn’t failed any of the regularly random tests he’s subject to as a past doper and has looked thrilling when he’s had the chance to fight. He demolished Bryant Jennings for one. 25-0 and waiting for a shot.
Facing a defence of his interim against Alexander Ustinov, negotiations turned to mud and the fight ended up being scrapped and in the aftermath Ortiz had his contract bought out and he’s since signed with Eddie Hearn and Matchroom, who he hopes will finally get his heavyweight candidacy going – same promoter as Anthony Joshua, btw. To begin he’ll fight a keep-busy one against Malik Scott in November with the hope that he’ll be able to turn it around a month later to compete on the Joshua undercard. But the WBA’s taken the interim title from him.
So that’s that… but what about the actual title? Yeah, that’s a tricky one. There’s no real clear path but in the last few days the WBA have finally begun to clarify things, having sat on their hands as the Joshua-Klitschko talks seemed to depend on their action. The word now is that they’ll sanction that fight at some point in 2017 for the super title.
Then the regular title is likely to be on the line between Lucas Browne and Shannon Briggs. Fairly boring, that one, except that part of that was the fact that Browne had some legal pull having been dragged through the ringer by the WBA over the past couple years. Speaking of which, Fres Oquendo hasn’t fought since losing to Ruslan Chagaev by decision in 2014 for the vacant WBA regular title but he managed to win a court order that legally guarantees him a title shot. So he’ll take on the winner of Browne-Briggs, a bout which as of yet doesn’t have a set date but the fighters themselves say it’s happening.
Browne would have been fighting Oquendo now except that the Frenchman’s absence has been multiplied by a shoulder injury so Briggs is the lucky man to step in. Ruslan Chagaev, who was the guy behind screwing over both Browne and Oquendo, has since retired.
WBC – WORLD BOXING COUNCIL
Champion: Deontay Wilder
Title Fight: Depends Which Title…
Major Challengers: Alexander Povetkin, Bermane Stiverne, Johann Duhaupas
These are the lucky ones because Deontay Wilder has held on to this thing for nearly two years, meaning that they’ve escaped all the dramas with Tyson Fury’s situation as well as Wladimir Klitschko’s seeming reticence to fight (which, by the way, he has earned. With his name and record, he’s allowed to argue for big majority shares of the purse and he’s allowed to take his time – he’s fought damn near every challenger of his generation, other than his brother, and nobody is allowed to accuse him of ducking scraps). Even now the WBC is probably keen to lay low in the heavyweight division, which is exactly what’s happening since Deontay Wilder broke his hand in beating Chris Arreola in July.
Wilder is 37-0 with 36 knockouts. He’s a monster fighter though he’s another that is suffering from the state of the game. Because Klitschko ended all challenges for so long, there isn’t that much of an established heavyweight top tier and that’s reflected in the variations on all the rankings. Having said that, outside of Wlad himself Wilder is clearly the top dog.
He won the belt off of Bermane Stiverne in January 2015, after Stiverne had won it in beating Chris Arreola seven months earlier. That was for the vacant belt, after Vitali Klitschko had left it behind when he wandered into retirement having defended it nine times in five years. Since then Wilder has beaten Artur Szpilka, Johann Duhaupas and Eric Molina to retain it. Yup, that bloke Molina again.
But that’s not to say that the WBC are entirely out of the game. A week after Joshua and Molina go head to head, Alexander Povetkin and Bermane Stiverne duel in Russia for the interim title, which is effectively to earn the right to fight Wilder in his next defence. Stiverne hasn’t been doing much since getting mashed by Wilder the last time he fought him, fighting just once a year ago where he beat Derric Rossy by decision, though he was dropped in the first round there. Meanwhile Povetkin was dealt his first loss by Klitschko in 2013 by a comfortable enough decision, though he’s responded with four wins on the trot including over Carlos Takam in 2014. He’s 30-1 with 22 KOs and was all but set to fight Wilder earlier in the year only to test positive for that same drug as Maria Sharapova did (Povetkin is Russian). There’s significant doubt as to whether he used it after it was added to the banned substances list though, and he’s since been cleared.
And rounding this off, on the undercard of the Joshua-Molina scrap there’s also a WBC eliminator between Dillian Whyte and Dereck Chisora, while in January Carlos Takam is challenging the WBC’s silver heavyweight champ Johann Duhaupas. The silver is sort of like the interim thing but even more pointless. The WBC has champs, silver champs, interim champs and interim silver champs. It’s pretty stupid.