Undisputed: Tyson Fury, Oleksandr Usyk the latest to pursue sole dominance over a division

Tyson Fury has spent months building up his Oct. 28 bout with Francis Ngannou, talking about how fearsome Ngannou is and how hard Ngannou, the former UFC champion, punches.

Fury, though, told you what he really thought about Ngannou as a boxer by his actions Friday, when he signed his name onto a contract to face Oleksandr Usyk in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, either later this year or early next year in a bout for the undisputed heavyweight championship.

Fury is going to make enormous money by fighting Ngannou, easily above $60 million. The Saudis were desperate to have Fury in their event because their strategy is obvious: They see a huge market for tourism from the British, who are five hours away by plane. And they also can appeal to some, particularly the wealthier Brits, to come to Saudi Arabia to retire.

Think of this: All of the boxing matches the Saudis have put on in the last five years have featured big-name Brits: Anthony Joshua against Andy Ruiz and Usyk; Jake Paul against Tommy Fury; and Tyson Fury against Ngannou.

They could have had the undisputed welterweight title bout between Terence Crawford and Errol Spence. Let's be honest: They could get any bout they want given their extraordinary wealth — but that fight didn't fit their strategy because Crawford and Spence are Americans. Few Americans on a relative scale are going to vacation in Saudi Arabia and even fewer are going to retire there.

The other sports the Saudis are spending fanatically on, soccer and golf, are hugely popular in the U.K.

So the Saudis paid Fury exceptional money to take what he saw as an easy fight against Ngannou.

Fury, though, knew he needed to fight Usyk to unify the heavyweight titles and become undisputed champion to cement his legacy. So both he and Usyk signed their contracts Friday. The date will likely be Dec. 23, though there's a chance it will slip to January. But the bout is happening and it will be no later than January 2024.

And it continues a wonderful trend in boxing: fighters competing for undisputed championships.

On Saturday in Las Vegas, Canelo Alvarez and Jermell Charlo meet at T-Mobile Arena for Alvarez's undisputed super middleweight belt. Charlo, coincidentally, is the undisputed super welterweight champion.

Crawford took apart Spence in their bout and became the undisputed welterweight champion. Devin Haney is undisputed at lightweight. Naoya Inoue won the undisputed bantamweight title in December, then moved up to super bantamwewight in June and knocked out Stephen Fulton to claim two of the four 122-pound belts. He's close to a deal with Marlon Tapales to fight for the undisputed super bantamweight crown in December.

These fighters, and others like them, are brick by brick helping to rebuild this sport. One of the common complaints among lapsed boxing fans is that it's difficult to know the champions because there are so many.

And for a long time, that was true. That is changing and there is one man sitting atop many of the divisions.

The belts will undoubtedly fracture, because the sanctioning bodies can't come up with a way that they can work together to keep them unified going forward, but once a fighter wins the undisputed title, it marks a change. That fighter is clearly the best in the division and he becomes a target for the challengers and would-be challengers.

The public gains greater awareness.

Signing to face Usyk while he still has the Ngannou fight ahead of him is a risky move for Fury, though not in the way anyone may think. Just like Mayweather wrote the script against McGregor, Fury will do the same against Ngannou. Boxing and MMA are similar sports, but MMA fighters have to defend more than just punches, so they train to do things differently than boxers.

An MMA fighter isn't going to simply take a two- or three-month training camp and beat someone the ilk of Mayweather or Fury.

Before the Usyk fight was finalized, Fury likely would have toyed with Ngannou for a bit before getting serious and ending the fight. That's what Mayweather did when he fought McGregor. McGregor fought hard, but it was one of the greatest boxers ever against a guy who hadn't boxed before. It was ludicrous to think McGregor could win. Mayweather carried McGregor over the first four rounds or so, then picked up the pace.

Fury might have done that, but now, with an Usyk fight looming, he's more likely to go get Ngannou and wipe him out, finishing him early to preserve himself for the challenge Usyk presents.

The fight with Usyk will be fascinating. Usyk is a former undisputed cruiserweight champion and holds three of the four major heavyweight belts. He's perceived to be a small heavyweight, which he is in relation to Fury, who is 6-foot-9 with an 84-inch reach and will weigh around 270 pounds on fight night. But Usyk is 6-3, 220 and is roughly the same height and weight as the legendary Muhammad Ali.

Usyk is a superb boxer, though he's not a huge puncher. He did well against Joshua because Joshua isn't a great boxer and was available to be hit. Fury is an entirely different puzzle. He's an outstanding boxer himself and will have the advantage of that massive reach to jab away at Usyk.

That's a story that can be debated over the next three or four months. It doesn't matter at this point.

What matters is that yet again, two of the world's great boxers are stepping up and agreeing to face each other for enormous stakes.

When boxing does that, it's magical.

And this is clearly a magical time for the sport.