Tyson Fury claims he was stripped by the IBF in some form of conspiracy to bring the title to the USA

[Andrew Kearney]

On BS.com, within the past few days, there was an article wherein Tyson Fury claimed he was stripped by the IBF for essentially political reasons. Namely, the IBF wanted the title in the USA, with an American (black) fighter. The IBF has simply claimed that they are enforcing their rules, but the problem with the IBF's explanation is that the rules across the IBF and other organizations are usually not enforced, and there is a certain element of discretion that was not observed in the case of Fury, which typically would be.

I think there is a lot of truth to Fury's comment of being stripped for political and national reasons. Consider for a moment:

- Deontay Wilder, an "American Hope", upon winning the vacant WBC belt (vacant because Vitali retired, Wilder never had to actually "beat the champion" Vitali to get the belt), has now been allowed THREE voluntary defenses, despite the WBC initially ordering him to defend against his mandatory challenger, Alexander Povetkin. Why is Wilder, who never even beat the champ and won the title as a vacant, allowed 3 voluntary defenses and Fury is not even allowed 1? Why is Wilder ordered to defend against his mandatory but is still granted THREE exceptions and Fury is not?

- Charles Martin, another "American Hope" who is now the IBF champion after Fury was stripped, is another guy who never actually had to beat the champion in order to win the belt, and won the vacant title after Fury was stripped. IBF has said that Martin has more than one year before he actually has to fulfill any sort of mandatory defense. Why wasn't Fury granted this same privilege? Not to mention Fury's fight with Wladimir is contractually obliged. Don't you think the IBF could have exercised a bit of discretion and given Fury at least 1 voluntary defense? Why does Martin receive time and voluntary defenses but Fury did not?

Keep in mind that the IBF and every other title organization has an element of discretion, whereby they can always extend a mandatory defense to a champion. So, it's not like a champion has to defend against the mandatory right away, because look at Wilder, he was ordered to defend against Povetkin over a year ago and he hasn't been stripped because the WBC has exercised their discretion.

The IBF should have done the same thing for Fury, particularly because he was contractually obliged to defend his title. So, he was forced into making a voluntary. The least the IBF could have done was cut him a bit of slack (like they did for Martin, or like the WBC has cut a lot of slack for Wilder).

I agree with Fury there is a very apparent national bias in the IBF's decision to strip him, perhaps even a political or racial bias.

Its up to the fans to point out this hypocrisy and boycott the IBF.

[jameswilson]

Wilder didn't win a vacant title. He beat Bermane Stiverne.

But granted it wasn't the most legitimate of the titles.

[punchoutsb]

Wilder didn't win a vacant title. He beat Bermane Stiverne.

But granted it wasn't the most legitimate of the titles.

Correct. Stiverne won the vacant title from Arreola in a joke of a title fight.

I can't really fault Fury for thinking this, but it's got a lot more to do with the IBF being greedy than anything else.

[expe]

What the WBC do has no relevance to the IBF title.

Because Martin-Glazkov effectively became the mandatory defence as it was a vacant title fight. IBF rules say that the Heavyweight champion has to make a mandatory defence every 12 months, so Martin gets 12 months. That obligation doesn't end when the belt is lost, if Martin loses in his next fight, the new champion will have to fight a mandatory within 12 months of January 16th, the date Martin won the title, not 12 months from when they beat him.

The IBF stick to their rules, the only way for Fury to get his mandatory put back would have been to request an exception, once it went to purse bids that wasn't possible.

Fury and his team were stupid enough to sign a contract with a rematch clause in it, he was mandatory, he didn't have to, they could have gone through with the purse bid or agreed a deal without an immediate rematch. They should have known the IBF mandatory was next up and if they wanted to keep hold of the belt, they would have made sure they were able to take that fight.

If Klitschko had won, Glazkov was next, don't see why it should have been any different for Fury.

[punchoutsb]

Fury and his team were stupid enough to sign a contract with a rematch clause in it, he was mandatory, he didn't have to, they could have gone through with the purse bid or agreed a deal without an immediate rematch.

I think Fury is much more interested in the huge payday Klitschko II would offer over the chance to pay sanctioning fees to fight Glazkov or Martin.

[sharpei_louis]

Because Martin-Glazkov effectively became the mandatory defence as it was a vacant title fight. IBF rules say that the Heavyweight champion has to make a mandatory defence every 12 months, so Martin gets 12 months. That obligation doesn't end when the belt is lost, if Martin loses in his next fight, the new champion will have to fight a mandatory within 12 months of January 16th, the date Martin won the title, not 12 months from when they beat him.

The IBF stick to their rules, the only way for Fury to get his mandatory put back would have been to request an exception, once it went to purse bids that wasn't possible.

Fury and his team were stupid enough to sign a contract with a rematch clause in it, he was mandatory, he didn't have to, they could have gone through with the purse bid or agreed a deal without an immediate rematch. They should have known the IBF mandatory was next up and if they wanted to keep hold of the belt, they would have made sure they were able to take that fight.

If Klitschko had won, Glazkov was next, don't see why it should have been any different for Fury.

So if Martin makes his mandatory on May 1 2016, then doesn't fight until April 30 2017, a voluntary defence he loses, will the new champ have one day to make his mandatory?

Fury was mandatory for one of the titles but not all of them; to make the fight valid for all the governing bodies the likelihood is he had to sign a rematch clause.

I think your post has a tone of justifying this farce, that the IBF are OK with this rule. Again - boxing needs the champ in each division to be the best fighter, and this profiteering is muddying those waters.
The mandatory defence is in place in principle so the title doesn't sit idle, and to give each body's rankings some credence, but it's being used as a tool to ensure boxers can't keep all the titles even when they're defending against everyone they realistically can, like Klitschko was. I think to continually enforce this rule will ultimately just devalue the IBF further.

[asdfjkl]

Well it's at least odd to have Martin as your current world champion, luck or not.
Does anyone who his mandatory is? I'm to lazy to look it up with my phone.

[Ricky_]

There aren't any "rules". They just make it up as they go.
They knew the belt would either stay with Fury who's nit so active and fights alot of bums, or go back to old man Klitchko. They seen an opportunity to get the belt back into the heavyweight wilderness.

[Lennox]

You need to put yourself on the side of the man that is mandatory and has waited. Glazkov earned his #1 IBF rating and this happens in many divisions.

The whole team want to earn, Glazkov, trainer whole camp they dont to wait till late 2016 perhaps even 2017. ie Fury v Wlad (May) Wlad or Fury's next fight (maybe Nov).

The rules are clear enough. Also the IBF would have made much less in sanctioning fees than the Fury-Wlad rematch. All the IBF did was stick to their rules.

Perhaps the rules should be changed for the future and a genuine case for an interim championship with the winner of both bouts to meet, though even that would open up a can of worms as the winner v Fury or Wlad versus Charles Martin would not generate much $$$$$ and the uneducated fans would baulk at the poor opponent quality.

[expe]

Because Martin-Glazkov effectively became the mandatory defence as it was a vacant title fight. IBF rules say that the Heavyweight champion has to make a mandatory defence every 12 months, so Martin gets 12 months. That obligation doesn't end when the belt is lost, if Martin loses in his next fight, the new champion will have to fight a mandatory within 12 months of January 16th, the date Martin won the title, not 12 months from when they beat him.

The IBF stick to their rules, the only way for Fury to get his mandatory put back would have been to request an exception, once it went to purse bids that wasn't possible.

Fury and his team were stupid enough to sign a contract with a rematch clause in it, he was mandatory, he didn't have to, they could have gone through with the purse bid or agreed a deal without an immediate rematch. They should have known the IBF mandatory was next up and if they wanted to keep hold of the belt, they would have made sure they were able to take that fight.

If Klitschko had won, Glazkov was next, don't see why it should have been any different for Fury.

So if Martin makes his mandatory on May 1 2016, then doesn't fight until April 30 2017, a voluntary defence he loses, will the new champ have one day to make his mandatory?

Fury was mandatory for one of the titles but not all of them; to make the fight valid for all the governing bodies the likelihood is he had to sign a rematch clause.

I think your post has a tone of justifying this farce, that the IBF are OK with this rule. Again - boxing needs the champ in each division to be the best fighter, and this profiteering is muddying those waters.
The mandatory defence is in place in principle so the title doesn't sit idle, and to give each body's rankings some credence, but it's being used as a tool to ensure boxers can't keep all the titles even when they're defending against everyone they realistically can, like Klitschko was. I think to continually enforce this rule will ultimately just devalue the IBF further.

He wouldn't be allowed to have a voluntary then, if that was the situation then the IBF would order him to fight the mandatory by the end of January 2017.

He didn't have to sign a rematch clause, one was in the contract he chose to sign, but they could have either negotiated a deal without one in it, or gone through with the purse bids that were minutes away and got the fight without any obligation to fight Klitschko again.

There's no profiteering going on, the IBF would make more from Fury defending against Klitschko than they did from Martin fighting Glazkov.

There's a long standing agreement at Heavyweight with the mandatories, the WBA, WBO and IBF have agreed to rotate the mandatories to allow the champion to fit them all in. Povetkin was the WBA mandatory, then Leapai for the WBO and Pulev for the IBF. After that Klitschko had a voluntary against Jennings, before Fury as the WBA and WBO mandatory, so the IBF mandatory, Glazkov, was next in the rotation. They all knew that and chose to go for the rematch, they can't just put the mandatory back another until late this year, it was already well overdue.

[Boxing Prospect]

You need to put yourself on the side of the man that is mandatory and has waited. Glazkov earned his #1 IBF rating and this happens in many divisions.

The whole team want to earn, Glazkov, trainer whole camp they dont to wait till late 2016 perhaps even 2017. ie Fury v Wlad (May) Wlad or Fury's next fight (maybe Nov).

The rules are clear enough. Also the IBF would have made much less in sanctioning fees than the Fury-Wlad rematch. All the IBF did was stick to their rules.

Perhaps the rules should be changed for the future and a genuine case for an interim championship with the winner of both bouts to meet, though even that would open up a can of worms as the winner v Fury or Wlad versus Charles Martin would not generate much $$$$$ and the uneducated fans would baulk at the poor opponent quality.

"Earned" is perhaps the wrong word given that many thought he was gifted the win over Cunningham in the eliminator...maybe were happy seeing Glazkov lose due to his "fortuitous" wins over Cunningham and Rossy.

So whilst Glazkov got his payday, the right thing for the IBF to have done would surely have been to have had either an interim title fight (not a huge fan of the idea but certainly not the worst time for one) or Glazkov vs Cunningham II in an attempt to get a legitimate and non controversial result.

[keirw]

I wouldn't necessarily call it a conspiracy, but Fury has the right to feel slightly aggrieved. It's all well and good quoting the IBF rule book, but the question one has to ask is: if Klitschko had won the fight and chose to go through with the rematch, would the IBF have stuck to their rules so stringently and stripped him?

[Lennox]

Yes they would have stripped him too. They stick to their rules quite strictly.

Financially far better to collect sanction fees from Fury-Kltischko than Martin v Glazkov. So in this case a very un-greedy sanctioning body that actually did the right thing and stuck by it's rules. Instead people bleat because they don't understand.

[zorndeslammes]

1) Glazkov didn't earn anything. He should have had multiple losses on his record. Same with Martin, who literally did nothing at all to earn this opportunity except have someone who would pay money to the IBF.

2) The IBF is forced to stick to its rules in ways the other sanctioning bodies won't because they're based in the US and have nearly been put out of business multiple times by the federal government for malfeasance. They are constantly monitored as a result and must keep to their rules. That said, their rules are so arcane and absurd that they still produce some of, if not the worse internal rankings of any sanctioning body.

3) Glazkov's people understood how the IBF worked - little doubt of that - and positioned him for a mandatory fight knowing if Wlad won, he'd get cashed out, and Wlad lost, he'd probably get a vacant title fight which he'd be the favorite for. It serves them absolute justice that Glazkov's knee gave way like that. They all deserved that. The only person who perhaps didn't was Glazkov.

4) The argument that this is Fury's fault because he and his team chose to sign a rematch clause is patently ridiculous. Glazkov could have stepped aside for a big check, waited for the Wlad/Fury rematch and fought the winner for a much larger sum of money. They instead saw a shortcut to a belt and possible paydays and thought the odds were actually better of that working than sitting on the sidelines and Glazkov possibly losing in a tuneup. How'd that work out for everyone?

[Tony1244]

1) I think the conspiracy was to give the title to Glaskov.

2) To strip Fury for not facing any fighter in under a year is a travesty, especially Glaskov, who like Martin, should be just another contender.

3) I am part of the problem as I paid good money to watch the card in Brooklyn. But I know Tyson Fury is THE Champion.

4) Martin is getting way too much flak. If you were given a "title" and an opportunity to make more money for beating one contender, you'd take it too. So would I. No one claims Martin is a world beater, but he has beaten everyone in front of him including 3 undefeated heavyweights. While I'd favor at least a half dozen HWs to beat Martin, this worst title holder of all time crap has got to go. I think Monte Masters and Joe Hipp have claimed titles. Give me a break.

[Jack 1000]

The IBF stick to their rules, the only way for Fury to get his mandatory put back would have been to request an exception, once it went to purse bids that wasn't possible.

It sounds like Fury's team did not know the IBF rules,

The winner of Fury-Klitschko was mandated to fight the IBF #1 contender Glazov in the unification rotation. Why didn't Fury's team put an extension on the contract, so that he could rematch with Wladimar without the possibility of getting stripped?

I am not defending the IBF here. An extension should have been granted, but it was not put into affect prior to the fight. Why was that?

Jack

[zorndeslammes]

The IBF stick to their rules, the only way for Fury to get his mandatory put back would have been to request an exception, once it went to purse bids that wasn't possible.

It sounds like Fury's team did not know the IBF rules,

The winner of Fury-Klitschko was mandated to fight the IBF #1 contender Glazov in the unification rotation. Why didn't Fury's team put an extension on the contract, so that he could rematch with Wladimar without the possibility of getting stripped?

Fury's team absolutely knew the IBF rules. The IBF's rules should be irrelevant to fans because it would have forced a crap fight to occur instead of the rematch that should and will exist. But since this thread proves otherwise, the obvious thing here is that Fury wanted to make more money (as well he should) and Klitschko demanded a rematch clause (as well he should). Yes, they could have gone to purse bid, and then anybody could have bid on the fight, selected the location, and Fury would have received a smaller percentage of the purse with no rematch clause.

Obviously, retrospect being what it is, the smart thing to do would have been for Glazkov's people to take a step aside payment and wait until the rematch concluded. They are not that smart.

I am not defending the IBF here. An extension should have been granted, but it was not put into affect prior to the fight. Why was that ?

Rematch clauses are illegal per the IBF, probably relating to the nature of US law and "options" on fighters. To announce there would be a rematch clause would be to immediately strike the fight from the IBF's sanction and see the belt disappear into the same exact fight you saw before Fury and Klitschko even stepped in the ring. And even in the instance that Fury wins and there's a rematch clause, Glazkov and Main Events could have taken the step aside and let him fight Wlad. They didn't. They're morons.

[keirw]

Yes they would have stripped him too. They stick to their rules quite strictly.

I'm not so sure, personally.
I'm aware of the IBFs strict rules, but they have given a bit of breathing room to fighters in the past.
Klitschko held that belt since 2006 without any real danger of being stripped.

[Lennox]

Compliance for US fighters is closely monitored by the Muhammad Ali act, which I worked with the Association of Boxing Commissions and John McLean on building the compliance rules. I had nothing to do with mandatory rules but whilst they are probably more flexible, if you don't stick by the rules you open yourself up to getting sued for not completing a contract. Rocchigianni sued the WBC for something like $20M and won, slightly different situation but all the sanction bodies will have a barrage of lawyers behind them guiding them. Compliance is only law for US fighters, you can in theory move a Venuzalean fighter from 15 to 1 at your whim, you can't with a US fighter without declaring a reason within your monthly statement.

On hindsight it would seem that Tyson Fury had no need to pay his side of the IBF sanction fee since if he won he had signed for a re-match under his terms with the Wlad fight and so could not fulfill his IBF obligation. I do not know if they knew this or if an agreement with the IBF pre-fight was made.

What they can't do is make it up as they go along. They would not have wanted to strip TF. Glazkov's team pushed the rules as far as I am aware.

Without looking into a lot of research and dates into who Wlad was mandated to fight I don't know for sure, but the IBF are the strictest and will strip the biggest names. Mandatory positions can and often are satisfied with time extenstions with the payment of set aside money, so that might explain some things. It is not uncommon for a fighter to get $200,000 not to take his mandated or immediate fight to allow the other boxer to earn more.

[caldo2025]

Another one of the million reasons why Boxing needs to get rid of the alphabet titles all together. Now they are going to make it impossible for one boxer to carry multiple titles with their ridiculous rules. I'm American and I even think that Fury getting stripped of the IBF title after just winning it stinks to high heaven. To me, it smells of a pay off or some back alley handshake of some sort.

How can we restructure this bitch and get it right? Impossible you say or possible?

[Lennox]

You need to understand law. Too many idiots in forums that spout off blindly.

What the IBF did was act fairly.

[Tony1244]

You need to understand law. Too many idiots in forums that spout off blindly.

What the IBF did was act fairly.

Fury got stripped virtually immediately. Martin has a year to do whatever he wants. How do you explain this obvious lack of consistency?

[Lennox]

Glazkov was the mandatory fight after Wlad-Fury 1. Glazkov had already waited. It now becomes a blank canvas again because the mandatory has had his fight there is no standard mandatory due under the rules until x, the IBF will decide if a; Glazkov is installed at 1 and fights within 12 months or b; it orders an elimanation series between it's highest ranked contenders which is bizarre in itself that at the last ratings, Glazkov (prob out for 9-12 months)was #1, 2 was not rated, 3 is Wlad (unavailable) 4# Martin now champion 5# Teper (banned for 2 years) 6# Spilika (just lost) 7# Cunningham (I heard will go back to 200) 8# Joshua....so it is a mess complicated even further that Fury is not even rated as he is a WBA-WBO champion.

The over-riding problem was that Kathy Duva chose a route to the IBF title under the rules she felt was best.

[sharpei_louis]

You need to understand law. Too many idiots in forums that spout off blindly.

What the IBF did was act fairly.

No need to start calling everyone idiots who don't understand what clearly is more complicated than it needs to be by having too many governing bodies.

Most of us believe that if Fury didn't sign a rematch clause, he probably doesn't get the fight v Klitschko. It's OK saying he was mandatory so he had to get it, but Klitschko could have vacated or whatever - ultimately to be 'the man' he had to fight Klitschko, and it's likely he needed to make the rematch to make it happen.

On that basis, for him to be stripped of one of the titles less than a week later, whilst it may be technically fair and correct, it's against the ethos of trying to find the actual champion of the division, so it gets up people's noses.

When we complain about it, you coming on 'holier than thou' and calling people idiots doesn't make you look enlightened, it makes you look like you're completely missing the point that the rules were supposed to have been made to protect in the first place.

[Lennox]

You summed it up when you said the problem is with too many sanctioning bodies. It becomes very difficult to keep the belts because of the "fair rules" that each ABC has. When I say fair I mean the rules put in so each boxer has a chance of working his way up the ratings and becoming a mandatory and then earning some good money without signing the options.

It is the options and TV deals that stop a lot of the good fights.

It just seems unfair Tyson Fury was stripped. What is better though is to fight Wlad again for a lot more than defending against Glazkov.

People don't understand a lot of things of forums but it does not stop them typing. Hardly anyone ever says, yes your right I had not thought of it that way. What normally happens is three posts later someone will type a load of nonsense again. Most people I know won't talk on here because they say "your just dealing with idiots". If I start talking about football (and I do) I am an idiot.