Tyson Fury has vacated his Ring heavyweight title, with the vacant belt now at stake in Anthony Joshua’s rematch against Oleksandr Usyk.
Fury confirmed he has relinquished the Ring championship strap after reaffirming his retirement from boxing in a statement on his social media accounts on Friday.
Usyk and Joshua will now battle for the Ring title, along with the WBA, IBF and WBO world heavyweight belts in next Saturday’s rematch, live on Sky Sports Box Office.
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Saturday 20th August 6:00pm
Fury announced on Friday that he was retiring from the sport after retaining his WBC title with a stoppage win over Dillian Whyte at London’s Wembley Stadium in April.
He has since told The Ring magazine: “The Ring Magazine championship has always been the holy grail of boxing. They’ve been fantastic with me and I’ve always carried that title with pride.
“The greatest moment of my career was winning the world championship (by outpointing Wladimir Klitschko) back in 2015.
“There’s the great comeback after that with the three [Deontay] Wilder fights. There’s been a lot of great highlights in my career – even the Dillian Whyte fight in front of 94,000 at Wembley. It doesn’t get much bigger than that. And I went out with a bang.”
Fury’s US promoter Bob Arum remains hopeful that the unbeaten champion will resume his career in the future.
Arum told Sky Sports: “Fury’s retirement statement or unretirement statement depends on the weather and how he wakes up in the morning. I don’t take it too seriously.”
Joshua will attempt to gain revenge over Usyk next weekend after suffering a unanimous decision loss to the Ukrainian at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last September.
Anthony Joshua’s huge heavyweight rematch against Oleksandr Usyk is on Saturday August 20, live on Sky Sports Box Office. Book Usyk vs Joshua 2 now