Former heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua needs to get a special designated for a WBC title challenge with Tyson Fury for two reasons.
The first is that Joshua is not qualified by the World Boxing Council due to fighting under three other sanctioning bodies over the last six years.
Any boxer who fights under the WBA, WBO or IBF is automatically eliminated by the WBC Ratings Committee.
Anthony Joshua needs a WBC ranking
Now that Joshua is free from those other organizations, the WBC will rate the Briton. He should be listed in September’s heavyweight rankings.
So that’s a problem solved in a matter of weeks. The other though is those two losses to Oleksandr Usyk.
The WBC does not generally allow a fighter to challenge their champion after a loss. Therefore, like Deontay Wilder, he would need either a contracted rematch or a special endorsement from the WBC.
The Wilder trilogy stipulation in Fury’s paperwork secured his second attempt to win back the green and gold strap. Despite losing badly in seven rounds to Fury when he relinquished his belt to him, Wilder had the necessary ink in the contract to overcome his next challenge.
Joshua doesn’t have that privilege and will take on any Fury shot blindfolded and unrated for six years. Fortunately for Joshua, the WBC still has a policy of considering any applications.
Tyson Fury WBC voluntary option
On the merits, they may well rule in AJ’s favor and rank him in the top fifteen. This scenario gives Fury a voluntary choice to select his main British rival.
The WBC rules state: “In order to fulfill their requirement to regularly defend the title in a timely manner, the champions will propose voluntary defenses against qualified Challengers as defined.
“No bout shall qualify as a voluntary defense other than that permitted by the WBC in accordance with these Rules and Regulations.
“Unification bouts with champions from other WBC-recognized organizations must be specifically requested and may be approved, denied or subject to special conditions by the WBC in its sole discretion.”
Penalty for special combat
Under section 3.8 of “Special Match Sanction”, the WBC states: “Under special circumstances, such as a match involving an elite contender, a unification match, or another match that the WBC determines, in its sole discretion, would be the best for boxing. .
“The WBC may order and/or sanction such a fight as a voluntary or mandatory defense. The WBC may order that such special bout take precedence and occur before any previously designated mandatory defense.
“Under the circumstances set forth in the preceding paragraph, any previously designated mandatory challenge may be ordered by the WBC:
“(i) occur immediately after the special match with no intervening match.
“(ii) be rescheduled to occur after one or more voluntary bouts.
“(iii) postponed by the WBC until such time as the champion must defend against his next mandatory challenger. This includes any extensions that the WBC may grant in accordance with these Rules and Regulations.”
Those rules highlighted by WBN spell good news for Anthony Joshua and why any request from his team is likely to get approval from the WBC in rare circumstances.
The views expressed in this article are the views of Phil Jay.
WBN editor Phil has over ten years of boxing news experience. He follows WBN on Facebook @officialworldboxingnews and Twitter @worldboxingnews.
