Now There's a Belt on It: Warren Says Fury-Joshua Will Be for the WBA Title

Fury-Joshua didn't need a belt to sell. The tickets went in an hour. It's getting one anyway.

Frank Warren, who promotes Fury, told Sky Sports News on Monday that the WBA's "super" heavyweight title, the organization's top belt, will be on the line when Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua meet at Principality Stadium in Cardiff on Dec. 11. "That is the case at the moment. That's going to be on the line," Warren said.

That's a curveball, and here's why. Oleksandr Usyk let go of his belts, and the WBA already has Murat Gassiev in the heavyweight picture. Reports differ on Gassiev's exact status. Sky described him as the "regular" titleholder who expected to be upgraded, while the BBC reported last week that he had already been elevated in June. Either way, Gassiev said publicly last week that he wasn't sure he was still the WBA's champion. Now we know why.

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For Fury and Joshua, it's a chance to win back something Usyk took from both of them. For the WBA, it's a sanctioning fee on the biggest gate in British boxing history. Everybody wins, except maybe Gassiev.

Warren is already thinking about the next fight. He's promoting Daniel Dubois vs. Fabio Wardley 2 this Saturday for the WBO title, and he wants that winner to meet the Fury-Joshua winner in 2027. "We've got three of the four heavyweight champions on our roster and we're going to make unification fights next year," he said. Dubois sounded on board: "If they feed me one of them, I'll fight them."

Bottom line: a fight that was already about legacy and money now has a belt attached, plus a path to unifying the division in 2027. The question nobody has answered yet is what the WBA plans to do with Gassiev. That's the next story.

Catch up on the build: Ten Years Late, But Who's Complaining? Fury-AJ Is Finally Real, Dubois-Wardley 2 Fight Week and the possible co-feature, Opetaia vs. Wilder in Cardiff?

Fury-Joshua is on our Guess the Purse board, too. Nobody has published the real numbers yet, so take your best shot.

Sources: Sky Sports, BBC Sport, Netflix press release photos (Sept. 30, 2026)