The World Boxing Association has announced that it has created a tournament to consolidate all WBA heavyweight titles to give only one champion. Currently Tyson Fury is the super champion, Ruslan Chagaev is the ‘regular’ champion and Luis Ortiz is the interim champion.
The tournament format can be seen below:
President Gilberto Mendoza confirmed the tournament last night. It is a good move by the WBA to only have one champion, as it is simply unnecessary to have multiple world champions at the same weight class – although it is deemed unfair on Fury, who will have to win three fights to retain the title he won against Klitschko in November.
Mendoza took to Twitter last night to answer fans questions on the tournament. He confirmed that a unification fight would supersede the tournament if Fury was involved in one.
Fres Oquendo inclusion in the tournament is due to a US court ordered a rematch between Chagaev and Oquendo in April.
Chagaev faces Australian Lucas Browne on March 5 and will be the first fight of the tournament at the Colosseum Sport Hall, Grozny, Russia.
The Fury-Klitschko rematch is still under negotiations after ‘Dr Steelhammer’ activated the rematch clause after his loss. A showdown is expected in the summer, with a May 7 date rumored. The location is most likely to be in Germany again.
Luis Ortiz was ordered earlier in the month to defend his WBA interim title against Alexander Ustinov. Ortiz won the interim strap, beating Matias Vidondo via a third round knockout in October.
The WBA created a mess by creating too many titles at the same weight class and now look to be rectifying this. It is a good move for the sanctioning body and hopefully we see this happening throughout the divisions.
– Oun Abbas Hussain / @ouney86
– Managing Editor for Behind the Gloves.
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