Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua are receiving an unearned gift from the World Boxing Association. Neither Briton holds a world title, and their December 11 spectacle in Cardiff on Netflix certainly requires no manufactured hardware to pack a stadium. The sanctioning body is tossing its top heavyweight prize into the ring anyway, staging a brazen demotion of the actual titleholder standing in the wings.
Murat Gassiev did everything asked of him. He earned his position in the ring, collected his status after Oleksandr Usyk vacated, and defended his position by stopping Peter Kadiru in July. His reward is watching the WBA invent a higher tier
