By Mauricio Sulaiman
The abuse of power has once again hit our sport in a dramatic way as Orlando Salido and Micky Roman will be prevented from accomplishing their dream of winning the WBC title due to a decision taken by a man sitting behind a desk and mandating terms of their bout.
HBO has mandated their fight to be only for 10 rounds.
The promoters have no say in the matter and simply take the orders from the power force of the sport, the TV Network.
Tom Loeffler, Fernando Beltran and Oswaldo Kuchle simply have to bow down and remain quiet and accept to go against the essence of our sport, I wonder how will they look into the eyes of their fighters to explain that they will not be competing for the WBC green belt, that their fight is a simple 10 round fight with no meaning whatsoever. It will be like watching a pre season game of the NFL.
HBO will be airing a 10 round main event next Saturday night from Las Vegas Mandalay Bay.
The WBC will not disrespect the sport and sanction a world title fight for 10 rounds, that would have been easy to do and join the bandwagon, but the WBC Board would not favor such as there is no real explanation of the change from 12 to 10.
The WBC accepted a request for Salido to fight Miguel Berchelt in a title defense of the WBC super featherweight championship, the fight was accepted by HBO. Then, when Berchelt injured his hand, the WBC in support of the card, accepted to sanction a fight for the WBC interim title between Salido and Roman.
I am very sorry for Salido as he has expressed countless times his dream of becoming WBC champion, I am very sorry for Roman who has done the same and I am very sorry for boxing as a main championship fight has been downgraded to a 10 round fight with nothing at stake.