World Boxing Council (WBC) President Mauricio Sulaiman has confirmed that the organization will not enforce a mandatory title defense on WBA, WBC, WBO, and IBO heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk (23-0, 14 KOs).
According to Sulaiman, the WBC remains committed to supporting the status of an undisputed champion and will not stand in the way of a potential rematch between Usyk and IBF titleholder Daniel Dubois (22-2, 21 KOs).
"We have been very flexible and have always backed the concept of an undisputed champion. We made great efforts to secure an undisputed heavyweight champion, even refraining from ordering a mandatory challenger for Fury so he could fight Usyk.
We also made it clear from the beginning that the winner should have a rematch without being forced into mandatory defenses.
[Agit] Kabayel is a top-level fighter, but we also support the undisputed status. How could we allow Usyk to be stripped of a belt? That would be terrible. Now, there’s a possibility that he will once again fight for undisputed status against Daniel Dubois. We’ll see. We won’t apply pressure," Sulaiman stated.