Here we are, then. A sport that can be as farcical as it can be beautiful, at it again. The pound-for-pound best boxer alive, one of the greatest of all time, has been stripped of a world title over a failure to pay sanctioning fees. Mauricio Sulaiman, president of the World Boxing Council (WBC), has labelled Terence Crawford’s refusal “a slap in the face”. Crawford, in turn, has told Sulaiman: “Boy, you better slap your f***ing self”.
This episode, emerging from the WBC convention in Bangkok this week, is an unusual footnote on one of the greatest feats in boxing history: Crawford’s masterclass against Canelo Alvarez three months ago, when the American ventured two divisions above his previous maximum to become the first three-weight undisputed champion in the four-belt era. But he did not hold all four belts for long.
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Just 81 days into his reign atop the super-middleweight division, the unbeaten Crawford was stripped of his WBC belt for failing to pay the body its sanctioning fees – allegedly for the Canelo fight and one previous bout. Such fees are a controversial staple of boxing, typically requiring athletes to pay around 3 per cent of their purse to a sanctioning body.
In the case of his fight with Canelo, Crawford earned around $50m, according to Sulaiman, who also said the WBC reduced his sanctioning fee to 0.6 per cent. Sulaiman also claimed the majority of this number – $225,000 of an overall $300,000 – would have gone to the Boxers Fund, a charity (formed by Sulaiman’s late father Jose) helping fighters in need.
Sulaiman not only decried Crawford’s move as “a slap in the face” but also bemoaned a lack of apology from the 38-year-old, prompting an incensed verbal missile from Crawford – the likes of which he never propels at his opponents.
Terence Crawford (right) outpointed the naturally-bigger Canelo Alvarez in a masterful win (AP)
“Who the f*** you think I am?” Crawford said in a video posted to social media, filming himself in his car. “Boy, you better slap your f***ing self, I ain’t paying your ass s***. The f*** you talking about, pay you $300,000? What makes you so motherf*****g better than any of the other sanctioning bodies? Answer that question. Everybody accepted what I was giving them. The WBC, you think that you’re better than everybody. You got the f***ing green belt, which don’t mean f***ing s***.
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“You want me to pay you more than the other sanctioning bodies,” Crawford alleged, “because you feel like you’re better than them.”
The Independent has contacted the WBC over this claim, which gave way to Crawford saying: “You can take the f***ing belt, it’s a trophy anyway. [Why] the f*** am I paying you every time I step foot in the ring? I’m the motherf****r that’s putting my ass on the line, not you.”
The WBC did take the belt, whose iconic green-and-gold design means little to Crawford. He suggested The Ring title, “which is free”, is the “real” belt, although the significance of the famous boxing magazine’s strap is often debated.
Crawford with all the major super-middleweight titles, including The Ring’s belt (around his waist) and the green-and-gold WBC strap (Getty)
For what it’s worth, the WBC’s belts are arguably seen as the most prestigious in the sport, and perhaps the super-middleweight version will mean more to Britain’s Hamzah Sheeraz or interim champion Christian Mbilli, whom Sheeraz has been ordered to box for the vacant title. Perhaps it will mean more to Lester Martinez, who is next in line for the winner of that bout, having drawn with Mbilli on the Canelo vs Crawford undercard.
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That, at least, provides some clarity on what will follow this somewhat dizzying spell. But within that spell itself, who is in the right and who is in the wrong?
Maybe that depends on your view on sanctioning fees. There may be some fans out there who feel Crawford is sticking it to the man. There may be others who feel he is inadvertently denying a charity a considerable sum of money. There may even be those who feel Sulaiman’s reference to this charity is a stick with which to beat the unbeaten boxer – a way of painting Crawford as the bad guy.
WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman (Getty Images)
Whichever way you lean, there is no doubt this is a strange, messy episode that reinforces boxing’s recurring problem: its tendency to shoot itself in the foot.
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Other key stories to emerge from the WBC convention have been: the body granting Oleksandr Usyk a voluntary title defence (which the heavyweight king may use to fight an undeserving Deontay Wilder; a reported fight between the great Katie Taylor and UFC icon Ronda Rousey; and Conor Benn being named the WBC’s No 1 contender at welterweight, despite his thin CV.
It might be said that the WBC is not the bastion of all that is good and moral in boxing. Maybe Crawford isn’t, either. In any case, together they have appended an unwanted footnote to one of the most astonishing feats in boxing history.