Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk have agreed to fight next.

The two hold the four main world heavyweight title belts between them and their highly anticipated fight would decide the undisputed world heavyweight championship.

Bob Arum of Top Rank, the US company that co-promotes Fury with Queensberry Promotions in the UK, revealed to sky sports that neither Fury, the WBC champion, nor Usyk, the unified list of WBO, WBA and IBF heavyweights, would take a fight before this matchup.

Fury and Usyk are set to hold the undisputed contest in early 2023, with only the exact date and venue to be finalized.

“Both fighters have agreed to fight next,” Arum said. sky sports.

“With Fury and Usyk, we are dealing with two adults, not many [rubbish] back-and-forth. Usyk is a good friend of mine, he’s very smart, and Tyson is Superman, both as an athlete and as an intellect,” he continued.

“So they want the fight. Both want the fight and so there will be very little, if any, [messing] around. So we can achieve that. I am very, very confident. Like I said, the fighters both agreed to fight next without any in-between fights.”

The UK is still in contention to host the fight, despite lucrative offers to take it to a venue in the Middle East.

“Now the question is what is the date and what is the site,” Arum said. “But that fight is definitely going to happen and it will happen in the first four months of next year.

“We’re balancing out a few big offers from the Middle East and there’s also the possibility of doing the UK fight at Wembley. [stadium] with a massive crowd of 95,000 in attendance.

“Fighters have a relatively short life and money is important. So if the money that has been offered to us is real, it has to be taken into account.”

But he added: “Going back to Wembley and doing a fight in front of 95,000 people for me really stirs the blood.

“That would be crazy. It would be just wonderful.”

It shouldn’t be too long before a final decision is made. “We’ll sort it all out,” Arum said. “Hopefully maybe by the end of the year.”

The needs of combat boxing

There should be a champion, right? But it’s been almost 20 years since boxing has had an undisputed heavyweight king.

Lennox Lewis was universally recognized as the number one heavyweight in the world. After his retirement in 2003, the division was dominated by Wladimir and Vitali Klitschko. Together they held all four major titles at the same time, but of course the two brothers would never fight.

Tyson Fury beat Wladimir Klitschko in 2015 to scatter three of the belts, while Deontay Wilder would win the WBC crown the same year.

Fury was out of the sport for two years. Anthony Joshua went on to unify the WBO, WBA and IBF titles in an impressive series of championship wins. But he never fought Wilder when the American had the WBC belt.

It was Fury who came back in 2018 to beat Wilder. A clash between the two Britons when they were both champions was never organised. Joshua then lost decisively twice to Usyk.

This made Usyk the main threat to Fury. The significance that Fury-Usyk is now on track is that finally the two best heavyweights in the world will box to decide who is number one. This is exactly the type of fight that boxing needs.

The simplest question for boxing – which for too long has had no simple solution – has been: who is the real heavyweight champion?

With the Fury-Usyk set, the sport will finally get the response it needs.