Fair enough that he vacates the belts and fights anyone he wants. It would not be a great move for a fighter in his prime, but at his age it's much more understandable. But he should have done it after Dubois 2. Now he has held up the division for a year, and it comes off more as a duck of Kabayel than anything else. A bit of a shame.
Lineal is the only true championship. You didn't even had the championship belts until 1920's and The Ring belt, and alphabet belts didn't emerge until the 60's.
I'm sure in hindsight Usyk will realise he should have done this after Dubois II. Still have to wonder how much of the decision making in all this is coming from Lapin. Playing to Usyk's love of the sport to keep milkiing more money from him in any way he can
Maybe they will pay Usyk a huge amount of money to take a dive and then the lineal heavyweight champion title will belong to a Zuffa boxer...
Most likely, Zuffa promised him more money for a single fight than he would earn by winning the three fights he would have with the sanctioning bodies’ titles on the line, but made it a condition that he vacate those titles. Maybe they even offered him an astronomical amount to deliberately lose to a Zuffa boxer so that the lineal heavyweight champion title would pass to Zuffa.
Kabayel will lose his next fight, provided that he fights a boxer in top 10, and his hype train will disappear forever.