{"id":762198,"date":"2026-06-26T19:35:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T19:35:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/762198\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T19:35:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T19:35:14","slug":"oleksandr-usyk-vacates-belts-but-is-not-retiring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/762198\/","title":{"rendered":"Oleksandr Usyk vacates belts but is not retiring"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heavyweight world champion Oleksandr Usyk says he will vacate all his belts – but is not retiring.<\/p>\n

The 39-year-old, who has an undefeated professional record of 25 wins, held the WBA ‘super’, WBC and IBF belts.<\/p>\n

“This is a well-considered decision that I am confident will open new opportunities for me. This is not the end of the story. The continuation lies ahead,” he said on X.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian said in the build-up to his last fight in May – a gritty win over Rico Verhoeven in Egypt<\/a> – that he still wanted to fight on two more occasions before considering whether to hang up the gloves.<\/p>\n

In a video message posted on Friday he added: “I want to vacate all the belts that I currently hold to make them available for the guys next in line to fight for them.<\/p>\n

“Friends, I’m leaving the belts but not the sport because I still have my last dance.”<\/p>\n

Two-time undisputed world champion Usyk was pushed to his limits by Verhoeven, who had competed only once in boxing but had a formidable record from kickboxing, eventually finishing the fight late in the 11th round.<\/p>\n

Mandatory challengers are enforced on a rotating basis between sanctioning bodies, and the WBC had ordered Usyk to fight Agit Kabayel next.<\/p>\n

The undefeated German is widely viewed as the most deserving contender yet to receive his opportunity. And with the sanctioning bodies now having a decision to make, he could be elevated to champion.<\/p>\n

A rematch with Verhoeven may now make sense for Usyk.<\/p>\n

Having dominated the cruiserweight division, Usyk made his heavyweight debut in 2019 and went on to defeat both Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury twice.<\/p>\n

Briton Daniel Dubois, who lost to twice to Usyk, holds the WBO belt after defeating Fabio Wardley earlier this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heavyweight world champion Oleksandr Usyk says he will vacate all his belts – but is not retiring. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,85],"class_list":["post-762198","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\/762198","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=762198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}