“I will not recognise any of the other sanctioning bodies,” Dana White said in September when discussing Zuffa Boxing’s ambitions.
“I’m sure the WBC and the WBA and all those guys, they’ll still exist,” he had said little over six months earlier. “They just won’t work with us.”
Mauricio Sulaiman – the president of the WBC and one of the most prolific opportunists operating in an industry populated by those seeking opportunities where they shouldn’t exist – had already by then sought to build a relationship with the parent company of Zuffa, TKO.
“I have absolutely no concern or no negative views whatsoever [about TKO],” he told ESPN. “I think anything that comes into boxing is sensational.
“I think the WBC should make its position public, which is [TKO boxing] is a good opportunity because we have always supported any movement, any company, any tournaments that have been put together,” he also said with dollar signs in his eyes.
“I truly believe that with the multibillion joint venture that is supposed to be TKO and UFC and WWE and what His Excellency [Turki Alalshikh] has done in just under two years, it should be a great thing.”
Whether Zuffa will ultimately prove positive for boxing is far too early to tell, but if they continue to make Sulaiman and others feel threatened and that threat tames the wider sense of entitlement that so often defines the WBC they at least will have made a positive start.
It was in 2017 when White was first involved in boxing, when Conor McGregor, then the world’s highest-profile mixed martial artist, was cynically allowed to fight the 49-0 Floyd Mayweather on the occasion of McGregor’s professional debut. It was also Mayweather-McGregor when the troubling transformation of boxing’s identity into the even more shamelessly money-driven and attention-seeking entity it has increasingly become began.
For that occasion Sulaiman and the WBC, so often so determined to present themselves as boxing’s great guardians, created an unprecedented “money belt” – perhaps the most meaningless the sport has seen. Desperate to be a part of the fanfare, at the final pre-fight press conference Sulaiman unveiled a tacky Italian crocodile leather accessory compromising 3.3lbs of gold, 3,360 diamonds, 600 sapphires and 160 emeralds, at a cost in excess of $1m.
“The fight was made because of money, so we have the money belt,” Sulaiman gushed. “The idea was to have the most incredible belt.”
When less than a year later Saul “Canelo” Alvarez twice tested positive for the banned substance clenbuterol in tests conducted by the World Anti-Doping Association, Sulaiman, whose organisation had by then introduced their Clean Boxing Programme, said: “We know he is a clean athlete and, as we have stated, we will support him.”
Alvarez was banned by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for six months, but by the conclusion of 2019, after Luis Nery, Francisco Vargas, Rey Vargas and Julio Cesar Martinez had gradually joined him as Mexican prizefighters who tested positive for the same substance, the WBC announced plans to acknowledge WADA’s increased allowable threshold for the drug.
“This is a confirmation of the innocence of fighters like Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and Francisco Vargas,” read a statement from the WBC. “Even before the new WADA standard, the WBC has consistently treated those cases accordingly. Thus, after an extensive investigation, the WBC did not penalise the affected athletes.”
In 2021 it became the turn of Oscar Valdez, like Sulaiman also of Mexico, to test positive for a banned substance – in his case phentermine. That he was their reigning junior-lightweight champion presented the WBC with an opportunity to make the nature of statement that had previously eluded them, and yet they chose to allow him not only to remain as champion but to defend him with their president’s words.
“The history of Valdez, at two Olympic Games and a professional, has had more than 30 tests without ever having a doping problem,” Sulaiman said. “In addition, he is widely recognised by all members of the boxing community, pointing to him as a hard-working, clean, dedicated young man.”
In 2023 Conor Benn, less than six months after twice testing positive for the banned substance clomiphene, was “cleared” by the WBC despite the relevant tests being conducted by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association. His cancelled fight with Chris Eubank Jnr was under the jurisdiction of the British Boxing Board of Control; Eubank Jnr-Benn was also never a contest for which there was a WBC belt on the line.
“[There is] no conclusive evidence that Mr Benn engaged in intentional or knowing ingestion of clomiphene,” read another of their statements. “Mr Benn’s position in the WBC ratings shall be based solely on his merit and the customary factors the WBC Ratings Committee apply.”
It was none other than Benn who, having finally been cleared to fight in the UK over two years after the WBC’s attempted intervention and then fought Eubank Jnr in successive fights at middleweight, even more inexplicably found himself being ranked first by the WBC at welterweight – a weight division in which he had not fought for over three years.
The quality of the contests between he and Eubank Jnr was considerably beneath that of the two at light heavyweight between the Russians Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol, and yet when Bivol got revenge for his only defeat by winning their rematch, the WBC undermined the existence of the undisputed champion considered so healthy for the sport and the most natural of trilogy contests by demanding that Bivol fight David Benavidez, the Mexican-American, instead. Benavidez, who was made WBC champion after Bivol vacated their title, was competing at light heavyweight because he had finally grown impatient of the undisputed champion Alvarez not being forced to fight him at super middleweight – despite him considerably longer being ranked first at 168lbs by, almost inevitably, the WBC.
When later in 2025 Alvarez prioritised an undisputed super-middleweight title defence with Terence Crawford – who had never previously fought beyond junior middleweight – in a promotion overseen by TKO, the WBC were then among those to approve.
“I was treated so bad in Las Vegas [for Alvarez-Crawford],” Sulaiman later complained to Uncrowned. “Me and the other three organisations – WBO, WBA, IBF – we were not even given a credential. We were told we could not get into the ring. We were not allowed to go into the dressing room. We were not allowed to be at the commission desk. When we go to a fight, we go to work. It is not a vacation or fun or like a fan or a reporter that goes to a fight – we’re there to work. They are fighting for our championships. The fight was undisputed for the four belts, and it was very, very disappointing.”
Rules written by the WBC stipulate that for fights in which one of their titles is being contested the president is entitled to, among other luxuries, a hotel suite, front-row tickets, a credential, access to the ring, and further tickets. Sulaiman was reportedly given a hotel room but one he felt insufficient to conduct the meetings he needed to while in town.
Sulaiman and the WBC also in no way contributed to Crawford’s preparations for his highest-profile victory that September, but before he could even announce his retirement in mid-December he had been stripped of his WBC title for his refusal to pay the $300,000 sanctioning fee they sought.
“Not even a ‘Thank you’, or ‘I’m sorry’, ‘Taking a different route’,” Sulaiman said. “No response. I wish him the best. But this is not – the WBC is huge. It’s great. It’s about greatness. I’m relieved, to tell you the truth.”
Truthful Sulaiman had also been told he would not be allowed to get into the ring to present the winner with the WBC title. When the WBC is so “huge” and so “great” it remains unclear why he continues to believe his presence there to be so essential – unless, as it is so regularly tempting to conclude, his motive was to chase the limelight shining on another of the greatest fighters he and many others have been privileged to see.
If Crawford’s victory was the finest of 2025, then Shakur Stevenson’s at junior welterweight over Teofimo Lopez is the finest that has been seen since. His first victory in his new weight division – for the WBO title – was followed within days by him being stripped of the WBC lightweight title because the sanctioning body was being “consistent with WBC rules”.
Yet the week in 2023 after Stevenson dethroned Valdez as the WBC junior-lightweight champion, Alvarez, already then the undisputed champion at super middleweight, moved up to light heavyweight to challenge Bivol for the WBA title. He lost – convincingly – but he was never stripped of his 168lbs titles, and he continued to determine his opponents up to and including Crawford in September 2025.
“[$100,000] to some crooks who don’t deserve it?” Stevenson posted in response on social media. “The WBC didn’t even have shit to do with this fight, and it’s eating them alive. Take your belt, it don’t make me.
“I just paid these dudes after my last fight [against William Zepeda in 2025]. What the hell am I giving y’all 100k right now for? Because y’all got beef with ‘Bud’ [Crawford, Stevenson’s friend], so come at me?”
If there has been little to suggest that Stevenson is being punished as an act of revenge aimed at Crawford, Stevenson’s criticism remains a reflection of the complacent and self-serving attitude widely considered to be at the heart of the WBC.
The IBF – who stripped Crawford of their title in 2023 to end his reign as the undisputed welterweight champion – has previously seen a president and officials indicted on federal racketeering charges; the WBA, who regularly oversaw “interim”, “regular” and “super” world champions, in July shamelessly gave a world ranking to Jake Paul; the WBO’s rankings are regularly the most questionable of all.
The WBC and Sulaiman are also said by some outside of their organisation but familiar with him and their procedures to care about boxers and boxing.
But they are also as vocal and attention-seeking as they are tone-deaf when promoting their plans, “rules and regulations”, and regardless of how Zuffa proceed in the long-term, previously undermined the value of their own titles by introducing so-called “franchise champions” for high-profile figures and “diamond belts” for high-profile occasions as they deemed fit.
The money Sulaiman has been open about demanding from Crawford and Stevenson wouldn’t pay for even half of the “money belt” commissioned to fellate Mayweather-McGregor in 2017.
“[Zuffa] has come in with some actions that are highly difficult to understand,” Sulaiman also told Uncrowned. “There’s no need to be so arrogant and so aggressive and say, ‘I am the man and I am the one’.
“I do no like the arrogant way, the bullying way, the aggressive way – there’s no need,” he added.
He then arguably spoke loudest when he said: “They claim there are no sanction fees in Zuffa. Of course there are no sanction fees, because they take all the money.” How appropriate that the lacking-in-self-awareness Sulaiman could in so many ways have been describing the WBC.
