Murat Gassiev Considering Moving To Heavyweight After World Boxing Super Series
Unified WBA and IBF cruiserweight champion Murat Gassiev isn’t just thinking about his upcoming historic World Boxing Super Series finals fight against Oleksandr Usyk, but also a run at the heavyweight division.
Gassiev recently talked about the possibility of moving up in weight after his fight against Usyk in May, but said he would like to finish his business as a cruiserweight first before deciding to move up in weight.
“I would like to change my weight division, go to heavyweight, because it is the most prestigious… I want to try my hand there. At the moment, I’m still in the cruiserweight division and I need to win my next fight to become the absolute champion of the world, and then we will see,” Gassiev said.
The World Boxing Super Series cruiserweight finals will not only award the winner the Muhammad Ali trophy but the winner is expected to walk away with the unified WBA, WBO, WBC, IBF and Ring Magazine titles, which would be the first time in history a cruiserweight has held all five titles at the same time.
If Gassiev wins the WBO title and decides to move up to heavyweight, he could make himself the mandatory challenger to the WBO heavyweight title. By the time the World Boxing Super Series concludes, the WBO heavyweight champion will be the winner of the Anthony Joshua vs. Joshua Parker fight on March 31. The winner of that fight would also likely be holding the WBA “super,” IBF and IBO heavyweight titles.
This wouldn’t be the first time a four-belt champion moves up in weight soon after winning all the major world titles. Back in August, Terence Crawford unified the four alphabet belts at junior welterweight and moved up to welterweight almost immediately where he is expected to fight WBO champion Jeff Horn in August.
