FOR the time being, the heavyweight championship remains undisputed.

Ukraine's Oleksandr Usyk unified all four major belts (WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO) in the heavyweight division last May 18 by scoring a decision victory over Tyson Fury.

The victory made Usyk the first undisputed heavyweight champion since 1999 or after Lennox Lewis defeated Evander Holyfield for the WBA, WBC and IBF diadems.

Usyk's undisputed reign, however, almost came to an immediate end.

When Fury announced that he was going to fight Usyk again, the IBF refused to recognize the rematch and insisted on Usyk defending the IBF crown against mandatory challenger Filip Hrgovic. The IBF made it clear that Usyk was going to be stripped of the crown should he choose to fight Fury again instead of Hrgovic.

Fortunately for Usyk, the IBF head honchos gave in to public opinion.

With boxing fans calling for the heavyweight title to remain undisputed, the IBF was left with no choice but to grant the request of Usyk for an exemption vis-à-vis the mandatory IBF defense against Hrgovic.

The IBF instead decided to sanction as a battle for its "interim" belt a fight between Hrgovic and Daniel Dubois on June 1. In effect, the regular IBF belt remained with Usyk, with the winner of the Hrgovic-Dubois fight being recognized as interim or temporary champion. If you cannot get the drift, the winner of Hrgovic-Dubois ends up being the "caretaker" of the IBF belt as Usyk remains preoccupied with the Fury rematch.

Dubois stopped Hrgovic in eight rounds to win the interim IBF belt. With the loss, Hrgovic lost his status as mandatory challenger to Usyk's regular IBF belt.

Usyk is booked to face Fury again on December 21 with all four major titles on the line.

A new twist has cropped up, though, one that threatens to chop into pieces the undisputed heavyweight crown.

Usyk (22-0, 14 knockouts) recently announced that the second fight with Fury in December may be his last in the heavyweight division.

Usyk is mulling on returning to his old home, the cruiserweight division (200 pounds), after the rematch with Fury. Usyk told reporters that staying in the heavyweight division has become burdensome.

Usyk claims that whenever he starts training camp, he has to eat too much food just to stay within the heavyweight range. For the Fury fight, Usyk weighed a career-heavy 224 pounds. Still, Fury outweighed Usyk by 38 pounds by coming in at 262 pounds.

Usyk stands 6'3", but today's heavyweight boxers are just too big.

Humongous, to be precise.

Fury stands a towering 6'9" and weighs in the vicinity of 265 pounds.

China's heavyweight contender, Zhang Zhilei, stands 6'6" and tips the scale at around 280 pounds.

The heavyweights today have become so big that the WBC and the WBA decided to create a division between the cruiserweight and heavyweight classes: the bridgerweight division with a weight limit of 224 pounds.

Usyk reigned as undisputed cruiserweight champion in 2018. He moved up to the heavyweight division in 2019, bypassing the bridgerweight division as only the WBA and WBC recognize the new weight class.

Usyk debuted in the heavyweight division by weighing at a considerably light 215 pounds. Usyk is 6-0 as a heavyweight but in all these fights he was massively outweighed by his opponents.

In October 2020, Usyk weighed just 217 pounds compared to Derek Chisora's 255 pounds. In Usyk's first fight with Anthony Joshua in September 2021, he checked in at 221 pounds compared to Joshua's 240 pounds.

To Usyk's credit, he is undefeated as a heavyweight and has soundly defeated two of the biggest names in the weight class: Joshua (twice) and Fury.

Then again, as Usyk put it, it has become so difficult for him to bulk up for his heavyweight opponents.

Usyk, 37, is looking to play it safe by returning to the cruiserweight class.

The cruiserweight is Usyk's comfort zone, but from a financial standpoint his wallet stands to take a hit when he leaves the lucrative heavyweight division.

Usyk definitely has a lot of things to consider. For now, though, the priority is to face Fury again as a cash windfall awaits Usyk for the second fight.

For the first fight, Usyk agreed to Fury's demand for a 70-30 purse split in favor of Fury. The split is expected to be reversed for the rematch given that Usyk won the first fight.

Early reports have it that the Usyk-Fury rematch is likely to have a purse of over $191 million, or some $45 million more than the pot for the first match. Usyk will get the lion's share of the purse split in the second fight.

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