It was the weekend on which boxing was meant to wake up with an undisputed heavyweight champion. Instead, the sport’s premier division continues to frustrate. And with 2023 whizzing by, there is little time to resurrect what has been an idle year.

Talk of a middle eastern heavyweight bonanza is, as we know it, a pipe dream. If you can’t line up these fights normally, then overcoming the logistical nightmare that brings them together on one night, is fanciful.

No doubt the promoters involved will tell us otherwise. ‘My fighter is 100% in’, they’ll say, knowing full well that broadcast deals, image rights and the ego-meter are non-compliant.

I would presume that due to not having a broadcast deal, Oleksandr Usyk may be the easiest to work around. Then again, I go back to the fact it is May 1st, and he and Tyson Fury are nearly 2000 miles apart.

The failure between the two to agree on terms for the division’s crowning fight felt like the apex of a worrying trajectory in the sport. It also came just months after another high-profile collapse in negotiations, denying us once again the fight between Fury and Anthony Joshua.

I gather I probably sound like a bit of a miserable b****** here, but my recent experiences as a boxing fan have been littered with false hope. This is Britain’s richest era of heavyweights for 30 years; I don’t want to look back and say, ‘what if?’

Talking of our current crop, it has been two weeks since Joe Joyce’s devastating defeat at the hands of Zhilei Zhang. As is par for the course nowadays, Joe is likely to activate the rematch clause and go straight for revenge.

Zhang has expressed an interest in fighting Fury otherwise, but when forced into a 90/10 split would I’m sure change his mind.  

Dillian Whyte and Martin Bakole got heated out in Poland where, for legal reasons, I will avoid the context, instead just telling you that Whyte did not take well to being ran up on.

There has also been a lot of talk around the British title situation involving Fabio Wardley and Frazer Clarke. Now at the top end of the sport, despite my earlier grumble, I appreciate that making fights isn’t a painless procedure.

But at British level it seems almost comical.

‘The fight will happen when it’s supposed to happen’ … they say, after the fight has been ORDERED by the board. Not sure what bigger indicator you need.

Maybe everyone just needs their heads banging together. Then again, even for that I’m sure they’d need a rematch clause.

Anyway, apologies for beginning the week with a rant, I was just really looking forward to Wembley on Saturday. Let’s now hope that the remainder of 2023 can bring the big fights we crave.

Less talk more action, right boys?

Oscar Bevis