The heavyweight division is set to have a new addition very soon.
Widely regarded as the banner division in boxing, heavyweight has seen some incredible fights over the past year, most notably Oleksandr Usyk‘s victory over Tyson Fury in May to become undisputed.
Another blockbuster bout then came in September, when Daniel Dubois successfully defended the IBF belt that had since been vacated by Usyk, stopping Anthony Joshua in the fifth round at Wembley Stadium.
Fury and Usyk will do battle again in December, with the WBC, WBO and WBA titles on the line in that bout, but one man that will now have a keen eye on the heavyweight scene will be Lawrence Okolie.
Okolie won the WBC bridgerweight title in May with a first round stoppage win against Lukasz Rozanski, and was then ordered to defend against Kevin Lerana.
The WBC have now announced that Okolie will be vacating his belt rather than going ahead with the bout, and has instead announced his intention to move up to heavyweight.
“First I would like to state how proud and happy I was to compete for and win the WBC bridgerweight belt
After much consideration it is with a heavy heart that I have to unfortunately relinquish the WBC bridgerweight belt respectfully requesting to be rated in the top 5 in the heavyweight division.”
The current WBC rankings has Fury at #1, Agit Kabyael at #2, Martin Bakole at #3, Zhilei Zhang at #4 and Efe Ajagba at #5, but a big fight has just been ordered for one of those men.
