By Keith Idec
Laughable.
That’s about the best way to describe the WBO’s deceptive explanation for why it installed Canelo Alvarez as its mandatory middleweight championship challenger over Avtandil Khurtsidze. As if it isn’t absurd enough that the Puerto Rico-based sanctioning organization makes distinctions between its No. 1 contenders and mandatory challengers, now members of the WBO’s championship committee are trying to tell us that skipping Khurtsidze in favor of Alvarez is about something other than collecting more money for the WBO.
In explaining its decision to make Alvarez the mandatory challenger for WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders, an unidentified member of the organization told espn.com’s Dan Rafael for a story posted Wednesday night that Alvarez is “a boxing fan’s idol” and a “crowd favorite, with more than 52,000 fans present in his recent bout against Liam Smith in Dallas. He is the top pay-per-view fighter on HBO, [and] his presence has given that category a renewed interest in boxing. At this moment, [Alvarez] will give maximum required exposure.
“In view of the facts presented above, in accordance with the WBO regulations, and weighing the merits to be considered, the championship committee has decided that, in the best interest of boxing, Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez should be the mandatory challenger.”
That’s a lot of gibberish that still doesn’t state the obvious – that this decision serves the best interests of the WBO, not boxing, because it would make more money from an Alvarez-Saunders fight than Saunders-Khurtsidze.
None of the above statements about Alvarez’s stature in this star-starved sport are false. The Mexican superstar obviously is a cash cow, wildly popular among a large, loyal fan base that packs arenas and stadiums and buys his pay-per-view events.
His earning power is why Alvarez and promoter Oscar De La Hoya have been able to string along Gennady Golovkin and increasingly impatient fans of this sport for so long.
But what do any of those obvious statements made by the WBO have to do with the fact that Khurtsidze could be denied the title shot he deserves due to the organization’s greed?
The WBO made Khurtsidze (32-2-2, 21 KOs) its No. 1 contender in March, after the Brooklyn-based brawler recorded a 10th-round technical knockout against then-undefeated Antoine Douglas (19-1-1, 13 KOs), of Burke, Virginia, on March 5 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Khurtsidze, who hasn’t made major money during his 14-year pro career, has waited patiently for nine months, holding out hope that the WBO would order England’s Saunders to fight him.
Saunders instead made an optional title defense against Russia’s Artur Akavov (16-2, 7 KOs), then the WBO’s 10th-ranked contender, on December 3 in Paisley, Scotland. The British southpaw admittedly performed poorly in that bout, but still won a 12-round unanimous decision.
The WBO could’ve forced Saunders to make an overdue mandatory defense in that fight. He hadn’t fought in nearly a year – not since winning the WBO 160-pound title by majority decision from Irishman Andy Lee (34-3-1, 24 KOs) on December 19, 2015, in Manchester, England.
After allowing Saunders (24-0, 12 KOs) to choose another opponent, the WBO has made matters worse with this dubious decision.
By making Alvarez (48-1-1, 34 KOs), its super welterweight champion, its mandatory middleweight challenger, the WBO has made a complete mockery of its rankings. Alvarez, after all, has utterly refused to fight at the middleweight limit of 160 pounds, despite winning the WBC middleweight championship from Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto (40-5, 33 KOs) 13 months ago and successfully defending it against welterweight Amir Khan on May 7.
The 26-year-old Alvarez and De La Hoya insist he finally is ready to become a full-fledged middleweight now that he has knocked out England’s Liam Smith (23-1-1, 13 KOs) in the ninth round September 17 in Arlington, Texas. And technically, he has fought at middleweight because any fight contested between 155 and 160 pounds counts as such.
Nevertheless, this Alvarez-Khurtsidze controversy amounts to a WBO sanctioning scam.
According to the WBO’s rules, it takes two percent apiece from a champion’s purse and a challenger’s purse to sanction one of its title fights. It caps its sanctioning fee at $200,000 for any single fight.
An Alvarez-Saunders fight would enable the WBO to collect a $200,000 sanctioning fee, whereas the WBO would pocket a significantly smaller fee from a far less profitable Saunders-Khurtsidze contest.
That’s the real reason they favored Alvarez over Khurtsidze, whose handlers had 10 days from Tuesday’s decision to file an appeal. And that’s fine.
Making money from fighters’ purses is the WBO’s primary purpose. Same goes for the IBF, WBA and WBC.
Those four organizations operate in this brutal business to make as much money as possible, same as fighters, managers, promoters and everyone else involved in it.
At least the WBO hasn’t designated three world champions apiece in seven of boxing’s 17 weight classes. Those are the lengths to which the WBA has gone to squeeze every nickel possible out of fighters.
But the WBO should just admit what we already know – that it is looking to make another $200,000 from Alvarez-Saunders, just the way it did from the Andre Ward-Sergey Kovalev light heavyweight title fight November 19 in Las Vegas.
Of course, this might amount to a temporary mess created by the WBO.
If Alvarez actually is serious about moving up from 154 pounds to 165 or some nearby catch weight for a fight against fellow Mexican Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on May 6, Khurtsidze could get his shot at Saunders sooner rather than later. That, too, would be laughable because Alvarez, after making all kinds of excuses for not fighting at the middleweight limit of 160 pounds over the past year, would bypass that weight entirely to encounter Chavez (50-2-1, 32 KOs, 1 NC) in a super middleweight fight.
But at least then, Khurtsidze would receive the title shot that already should’ve taken place.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
