By Yuri Tarantin

The WBC cruiserweight 'champion in recess,' Grigory Drozd (40-1, 28KOs), has already started training and plans to exercise a clause which gives him an immediate world title shot.

The cruiserweight belt changed hands on Sunday in Liverpool, when Tony Bellew (27-2-1, 17KOs) knocked out Ilunga Makabu in three rounds to capture the vacant WBC world title.

Drozd never lost the belt in the ring. The belt became vacant when he suffered multiple injuries and was unable to meet his mandatory obligation to Makabu. The WBC made him the 'champion in recess' - a status which grants him an immediate world title shot at whoever is the current beltholder.

Drozd was impressed with Bellew's victory and is eager to get in the ring with the new world champion to set the record straight on who the real titleholder is.

Drozd captured the belt in September of 2014 with a dominating performance over longtime champion Krzysztof Wlodarczyk. He made his first defense last May with a ninth round stoppage of Lukasz Janik.

"First of all, I'd like to congratulate Tony Bellew on his big win. Ilunga Makabu is a very strong fighter and defeating him is a great achievement. I'm happy that while I was out with the injury, the WBC belt wasn't put on a shelf and it was contested in such a spectacular fight between two worthy contenders. That's exactly what I wanted after I was injured and had to postpone my next fight," Drozd said.

"The 'champion in recess' title gives me the right to fight for the WBC belt when I completely recover from the injury. And I'm going to take advantage of this right. I started training again last week and I'll be ready to fight Tony Bellew in the autumn or in winter."

Yuri Tarantin covers boxing for Allboxing.ru.