Heavyweight champ Tyson Fury has been stripped of his International Boxing Federation (IBF) crown less than two weeks after defeating KLITSCHKO to win four of the boxing world's five heavyweight titles. The Briton had the IBF belt removed after it emerged that he had signed a contract with Klitschko for a rematch.
The IBF contract for the fight in November stipulated that the winner would need to face Vyacheslav Glazkov as a mandatory challenger. The IBF insists Fury should fight challenger Vyacheslav Glazkov and opened up a bidding process for its purse two days after Fury's victory.
The bidding which was supposed to take place on December 11 has now become irrelevant after Klitschko exercised a clause which stated he could have a rematch for the IBF title if he wanted.
This implies the heavyweight category which has been dominated by Klitschko for nine years will now be divided as Fury will hold the WBO, WBA and IBO titles while American Deontay Wilder is the WBC champion leaving the IBF title vacant.
Reacting to this decision, Fury's promoter Mick Hennessy said to ESPN: ''If the IBF are going to make a belated moral judgment and strip Tyson Fury because, apparently, [Klitschko promotional company] K2 never told them about the rematch clause, surely they should be just as moral and not take the large sanction fees they are taking. 'In my opinion, the IBF should be ashamed of themselves.''
''First, they called for private negotiations. Cancelled. Then they called for purse bids. Cancelled. Then they strip Tyson of his title for something he had no control over. 'Tyson as a fighter, Peter [Fury, his uncle] as a trainer and us as a promotional outfit, we did things properly. We went after the elite lineal heavyweight champion in Wladimir Klitschko. We took the hardest route of all and pulled it off big-time.''
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