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Tyson Fury won an entertaining brawl on Saturday evening, knocking out Deontay Wilder in the 11th round of their heavyweight championship bout. The question of what is next for the WBC heavyweight champ is straightforward, but will take some time to answer.
Fury might end up having to face a mandatory challenger, but the fight he really wants is a unification bout. It was expected to be against Anthony Joshua, but that has been delayed. Joshua lost a clear unanimous decision to Oleksandr Usyk in September, and over the weekend he officially exercised his rematch clause. Joshua and Usyk will meet in the spring of next year.
This is the second time Joshua will be fighting a rematch coming off a loss. He got a rematch against Andy Ruiz after losing by seventh round TKO and came back to win a unanimous decision. Now, he will face Usyk hoping to overcome a disappointing performance in the first fight. If Joshua wins the rematch, that does not guarantee he moves on to fight Fury. If he wins a close one, we could be in store for a third fight.
Given how well Usyk performed in the first fight, we could see him win the rematch as well. If that happens, it would seemingly set up a unification bout between Usyk and Fury. Usyk is only a few fights into his heavyweight career after spending most of his career in the cruiserweight division. He’d be significantly outweighed by the much larger Fury, but as we saw against Joshua, he’s a smart fighter who could find a way to win it.
But for now, Usyk will look to show his win over Joshua was not a fluke.