The heavyweight landscape has rarely looked so British.
Oleksandr Usyk’s decision to relinquish the WBA, IBF and WBC titles has opened the door for a new era and UK heavyweights could not be better placed.
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Across the four major sanctioning bodies – WBA, WBC, WBO and IBF – seven fighters from the nation sit in the top 10 of their rankings.
WBO champion Daniel Dubois is the only one in possession of a title, with Fabio Wardley ranked number four after losing to his fellow Briton in May.
Rising star Moses Itauma, former world champions Tyson Fury – ranked number one with the WBC – and Anthony Joshua, British champion Richard Riakporhe are the other names.
Itauma faces Croatia’s Filip Hrgovic on 29 August but has been ordered to face Cuba’s Frank Sanchez, the IBF number one, for the vacant title.
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Lawrence Okolie remains number two with the WBC despite returning an adverse analytical finding in a drug test.
German Agit Kabayel, 33, has been elevated to WBC champion but is signed to Queensberry, which opens the door for British challengers.
Russia’s Murat Gassiev is expected to be upgraded to full WBA title holder before facing Tony Yoka in Moscow on 11 July, but Itauma, Fury and Joshua are in the sanctioning body’s top five.
While everyone has been in Usyk’s shadow for the past five years, the British heavyweight talent pool has developed serious depth.
“We’ve become a dominant power in the last 20 years,” Frank Warren told BBC Sport.
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Warren promotes five of the seven ranked British heavyweights at Queensberry. “It was something we targeted. When we went to do a TV deal back in 2016, I told them we were going to build a big heavyweight stable,” he added.
“Within a couple of months of doing the deal I went in with Tyson [Fury]. He was overweight and people said he couldn’t come back, but I said we could build a heavyweight stable around him.”
GB Boxing providing a pathway to the top
Warren has developed heavyweights of all levels, including poaching rising stars including Dubois and Itauma from the amateurs.
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Yet it is Sheffield’s GB Boxing gym that has aided Britain’s rise to the top.
Joshua, a two-time unified champion, turned from a novice to an Olympic gold medallist there.
Rio 2016 silver medallist Joe Joyce and Tokyo 2020 bronze medallist Frazer Clarke followed.
“All three went to an Olympics and won a medal individually,” GB Boxing’s performance director Robert McCracken told BBC Sport.
“It was also a strategy around retaining them in the programme and getting them the right development and experience.”
McCracken believes GB Boxing provides the perfect platform for fighters to be successful in the professional ranks.
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“They’ve encountered really good fighters in training camps on different continents around the world,” he said.
“By the time they turn professional, if they do the Olympic cycles at GB, I feel they’re far better prepared.”
GB Boxing has high hopes for super-heavyweight Damar Thomas, 21, at the 2028 Olympics, but there is competition from Matt Williams and Clinton Achusim.
USA playing catch-up
Deontay Wilder’s five-year reign as WBC heavyweight champion was ended by Tyson Fury in 2020 [Getty Images]
For so long it was the USA who dominated at heavyweight in the professional ranks, with Cuba shining in the amateur code.
Riddick Bowe was the last American who could claim to be the undisputed world heavyweight champion in 1992.
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In the 1990s, Eastern Europe emerged as the new hotbed before Britain took over more recently – thanks largely to heavy government investment and improvements in amateur programmes.
It is now six years since an American held a world title, after Deontay Wilder lost his WBC crown to Fury.
“I think with America, their big guys go play basketball or American football,” said Warren.
“There is no American football here really and basketball isn’t a massive sport here. The other professional sport which could be competition is rugby, but they can’t earn anything like what they can in boxing.”
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Jarrell Miller, 37, is the highest-ranked American across the four sanctioning bodies – sitting second with the WBA – despite doping violations and a lack of serious credentials to be a world-level competitor.
Richard Torrez Jr, who won silver at the Tokyo 2020 Games, is ranked number four with the IBF, but the 27-year-old’s hopes of a title shot took a hit in May when he lost to Sanchez.
Jared Anderson, 26, is rebuilding after defeat by Martin Bakole in 2024, while Joshua Edwards, 26, is a 2024 Olympian who is unbeaten in six professional bouts.
There is also excitement around 19-year-old Joseph Awinongya Jr, who is already on the radar of promoters including Warren.
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Itauma primed to replace AJ & Fury
Moses Itauma is undefeated in 14 fights as a professional, winning 12 by knockout [Getty Images]
Matchroom chief Eddie Hearn believes the UK has a lot to thank Joshua for. Warren would argue Fury played a major part too, while retired undisputed champion Lennox Lewis set the table with his feats.
“I don’t think AJ has got the credit he deserves,” said Hearn. “He wants to be a role model, we know he has opened doors, but he will never say it.
“If people don’t think he’s a trailblazer for heavyweight boxing then so be it. I do. Anyone with a brain knows he’s paved the way for a lot of these fighters.
“They all watched him coming up and he showed them what is possible. I don’t think there will be another AJ commercially. He was the one who opened the doors to stadiums being the norm.”
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Fury, 37, and Joshua, 36, are in the twilight of their careers but expected to finally fight in November. That is if they come through warm-up bouts unscathed, with Fury to face 46-year-old Mariusz Wach in Thailand just 24 hours before Joshua takes on little-known Albanian Kristian Prenga in Saudi Arabia on 25 July.
But with Itauma, 21, widely regarded as the future of the sport’s glamour division and Dubois, 28, holding one piece of the world title puzzle, British boxing is in rude health when it comes to heavyweights.
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