Tyson Fury has been given just under two weeks to decide whether to vacate his heavyweight world title.
Fury announced his latest retirement on Friday, four months after first claiming to be hanging up his gloves following his stoppage win over Dillian Whyte in April. He followed up this claim by vacating his Ring magazine belt which recognised him as the best heavyweight in the world.
And Fury has now been given until August 26 to confirm his retirement to the WBC whose belt he has held since he knocked out Deontay Wilder in 2020. "We had communication with his promoter and we gave him more than 10 days, until [August] 26, to confirm in writing if it is a final decision and in that way proceed and address the issue," WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman told Izquierdazo.
“We are going to wait until August 26. It is the deadline to have a written confirmation about his final decision. We are not in any hurry at all. He has been a great hero in and out of the ring. We continue to wait for him here in Mexico with open arms. If his retirement is confirmed, we will do a great tribute to Tyson Fury."
Fury made just two defences of his world title, stopping Wilder again in their trilogy fight last October before his successful homecoming against Whyte at Wembley. Fury had been expected to call out the winner of Anthony Joshua's rematch with Oleksandr Usyk next weekend, something the WBC's deadline allows him to do.
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Upon announcing he was giving up his Ring belt, Fury told the magazine: "The greatest moment of my career was winning the world championship back in 2015. There’s the great comeback after that with the three Wilder fights. There’s been a lot of great highlights in my career – even the Dillian Whyte fight in front of 94,000 at Wembley. It doesn’t get much bigger than that and I went out with a bang.
"To be honest with you, and I’ve always said, I don’t really give a f*** about what people think of me. I don’t care how they remember me. Being remembered means you’re not active [as a person] any more, you’re finished, and that’s it."
