Usyk vacates WBO belt, Wardley becomes new champion

Fabio Wardley (20-0-1, 19 KOs) was elevated to WBO heavyweight champion after Oleksandr Usyk vacated his belt from this organization today.

Wardley wakes up a world champion

Usyk’s decision to vacate his WBO belt has been predicted as he is in a position to make a lot more money against Anthony Joshua or Tyson Fury in 2026.

Business Over Legacy for Usyk

Financially, it made more sense for 38-year-old Oleksandr (24-0, 15 KOs) to vacate the WBO title and wait for Fury or Joshua to fall into his lap than to take on a risky title defense against the much younger, high-volume knockout artist Wardley. He’s a completely different kind of fighter than those two or anyone Usyk has faced since moving up to the heavyweight division in 2019.

Wardley (30) captured the WBO interim belt last month, knocking out Joseph Parker (36-4, 24 KOs) in the 11th round on October 25, 2025 at the O2 Arena in London, England.

WBO announced Usyk has relinquished the WBO heavyweight championship.

That’s why Fabio Wardley is THE NEW WBO WORLD CHAMPION! 👑 pic.twitter.com/OKzByXCjig

— DAZN Boxing (@DAZNBoxing) November 17, 2025

Now that Wardley has the WBO title, it will be interesting to see who his promoters at Queensberry have him defend against next. It probably won’t be Moses Itauma because they let him go on a different path to the WBA belt.

One obvious choice is Lawrence Okolie, who they promote and is ranked #4 by the WBO. It’s not a fight that will interest American boxing fans or even many in the UK. But there are enough Brits who would still like to see Wardley defend against Okolie for it to be feasible.

If Queensberry want to give Wardley someone who will attract global interest, they will choose one of these heavyweights:

• Frank Sanchez
• Filip Hrgovic
• Agit Kabayel
• Richard Torrez Jr.
• Jared Anderson

Wardley’s recent 11th round TKO victory over Parker was questionable in the minds of some boxing fans. They felt that referee Howard Foster pulled the plug a little too quickly when Parker was against the ropes and looked in trouble but was still dodging punches.

He didn’t throw anything back and threw just seven batters, including two in two minutes of action in the 11th. This left Foster with little choice but to stop the match as Wardley machine-gunned the helpless Parker.