What happens to the WBC, WBA, and IBF titles now?
WBC
Seems the clearest-cut of the vacancies, as the most likely scenario with the WBC is that Kabayel will be named their full champion. This is fair enough; Kabayel (27-0, 19 KO) has held the interim title since February 2025, when he beat Zhilei Zhang to win it, and defended in January against Damian Knyba.
This isn’t guaranteed, but the move to simply elevate Kabayel would be consistent with other recent events of this type, and the WBC clearly see Kabayel as worthy, or the order to face Usyk in the first place could or would have been avoided.
WBA
With the WBA, there is a ready-made “solution,” but we’ll see if it’s what they want. Usyk is vacating their ridiculous “super world” title, and Murat Gassiev already holds the secondary “world” title, which he won from faded veteran Kubrat Pulev last December. Gassiev is set to defend on July 11 against Tony Yoka.
The WBA could just recognize only Gassiev, but he’s not that big of a draw, and these things do matter. End of the day, the sanctioning bodies want good chunks of money from their fees and to be associated with big fights. It’s nothing to do with Gassiev personally, he’s just fought the fights he’s been able to get.
Now, to cover the bases, yes, the WBA did recently elevate David Jimenez from an interim status at super flyweight when Bam Rodriguez moved up, but:
Super flyweight and heavyweight are a different kettle of fish in terms of the money generated, and
Again, dumb as it may sound, “world” and “interim” are classed differently. Different things. The WBA can, in this case, choose to not sanction a “super world” title fight and just go with Gassiev for the time being, but that seems unlikely.
And it seems even less likely that Gassiev would get Rolly Privileges; he’s not going to get the treatment where Rolly Romero was recently elevated to “super world” status for no real reason other than Rolly’s perceived marketability. With Romero, there were not bigger names lurking. There was Jack Catterall and Shakhram Giyasov. Gassiev doesn’t have that situation.
At the moment, Moses Itauma is the WBA’s No. 1 ranked contender. He faces No. 6-rated WBA contender Filip Hrgovic on August 29. As goofy and convoluted as it may seem, that could be sanctioned for the “vacant” WBA “super world” title. They have done dumber things is all I’m saying.
Filling out the Nos. 2 through 5 slots are Jarrell Miller, Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua, and Nelson Hysa. Gurgen Hovhannisyan, Danier Pero, Artem Suslenkov, and Efe Ajagba are in the Nos. 7 though 10 slots.
Another option for the WBA could lie with two of those names: Fury and Joshua. If they are to meet late this year as anticipated, the WBA could wait for that and declare that fight to be for a “super world” title, citing their global reputations and accomplishments and stature, etc. Again, they’ve done dumber things.
IBF
The IBF, meanwhile, are often lauded because they follow their set rules, however dumb their rules may be or however bad their rankings. Neither of those things make them unique among the other three major bodies, but yes, they do tend to follow rules.
With the IBF, Frank Sanchez is currently the No. 1-ranked contender, having thumped Richard Torrez Jr in an eliminator in May. The No. 2 slot is vacant. Itauma and Hrgovic are ranked Nos. 3 and 4. That fight could be an eliminator to set up the winner against Sanchez.
Past those two, you’re looking down the line at Joshua at No. 5, Bakhodir Jalolov at No. 6 for whatever reason, Fury at No. 7, and Fabio Wardley, Deontay Wilder, and Richard Riakporhe rounding out the top 10. The aforementioned Torrez, Guido Vianello, Justis Huni, Ajagba, and Brandon Moore are the rest of the top 15.
