World Boxing Council (WBC) President Mauricio Sulaiman has hinted that a mandatory challenger will soon be ordered for WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury.
Fury has been absent from the boxing ring since December, following his dominant victory over Derek Chisora in their trilogy fight where he scored a tenth-round TKO to retain his title.
Last year, the WBC organized a series of eliminators to determine a new mandatory challenger for the Fury. In the first leg of the eliminators, Andy Ruiz won a twelve-round decision against Cuban puncher Luis Ortiz. On the other side of the bracket, Deontay Wilder swiftly defeated Robert Helenius in just one round.
Wilder and Ruiz were subsequently instructed to face each other in a final world title eliminator. However, the two parties failed to come to an agreement, and it appears unlikely that a deal will be reached in the near future.
Currently, Fury does not have an opponent lined up, nor has a return date been finalized. A highly anticipated unification bout between the Gypsy King and Ukraine's and IBF, WBA and WBA champion, Oleksandr Usyk fell through despite Usyk's team compromising to accept a 70/30 split as demanded by Fury.
"We have to take some action. There are different options. I'm going to address this with the board of governors because already we're entering June and there's no scenario. Tyson Fury will make us proud and show who the WBC champion is," Sulaiman told Sky Sports.
"[The order for Wilder-Ruiz] was announced since November. We've been patiently trying to do that. We didn't push it in the hope that Fury would fight Usyk. So that was all the way to March [when the Fury-Usyk negotiations collapsed]. So we have to take some decisions."
Beatrice Adamu is a writer for AceTVBoxing.com. She can be reached on Twitter @oh_stillbella or via email: adamubeatrice13@gmail.com.
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