Usyk relinquishes his heavyweight world titles

Oleksandr Usyk has relinquished his WBC, WBA and IBF World heavyweight titles, but he said will not retire yet.

Usyk (25-0, 16 KOs) announced the news on his various social media channels:

“Today is Friday, the weather is beautiful, and it’s a good day to announce that I want to relinquish all the belts I currently hold. I want to make them available to the next challengers so they can compete for these titles.”

Despite his decision to relinquish his world championship titles, the Ukrainian did not announce his retirement from boxing. Instead, he confirmed that he will fight at least one more bout.

“I’m hanging up my belts, but I’m not leaving the sport, because I still have one last dance ahead of me,” Usyk added in the same post. “I have great respect for the organizations and would like to thank them. There’s more to come.”