{"id":670869,"date":"2026-05-14T17:57:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/670869\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T17:57:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T17:57:08","slug":"usyk-vs-verhoeven-wba-gives-permission-for-oleksandr-usyk-to-defend-world-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/670869\/","title":{"rendered":"Usyk vs Verhoeven: WBA gives permission for Oleksandr Usyk to defend world title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The WBA has granted permission for Oleksandr Usyk to defend his &#8216;Super&#8217; heavyweight title against Rico Verhoeven on 23 May, but under strict terms and conditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Unified champion Usyk, 39, faces former Glory kickboxing world champion Verhoeven at the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/c5yqpj9ppkgo\" class=\"ssrcss-18834jl-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pyramids of Giza in Egypt.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The WBC previously confirmed that Usyk&#8217;s title would be on the line but there was uncertainty around whether that would also be the case with his WBA and IBF belts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Should Usyk emerge victorious, the bout will officially count as a successful title defence,&#8221; the WBA said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;However, the title itself will not be at stake for Verhoeven, as he is currently not ranked by the sanctioning body.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;If the champion were to lose, the WBA championship committee would then review his status and determine the next course of action regarding the heavyweight championship.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">BBC Sport has contacted the IBF for comment on whether it will grant permission for Usyk to also defend that belt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WBA has granted permission for Oleksandr Usyk to defend his &#8216;Super&#8217; heavyweight title against Rico Verhoeven on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":670870,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-670869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670869","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=670869"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/670869\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/670870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=670869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=670869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=670869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}