You can count Bob Arum among the few in favor of the World Boxing Council (WBC) practice of assigning “Franchise” champion status to its elite title claimants.
To his credit, the Hall of Fame promoter and founder of Top Rank Inc. was on board with the practice well before having an ulterior motive—his own clients benefitting from the designation.
Arum was open in his approval of World middleweight champion and pound-for-pound entrant Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez becoming the first such boxer to receive the WBC honor last June. He was obviously also on board when petitioning for his own pound-for-pound superstar, Vasiliy Lomachenko (14-1, 10KOs) to be named WBC “Franchise” lightweight champ at the sanctioning body’s annual convention last October in Cancun, just two months after the Ukrainian southpaw claimed the title.
“With two guys like that, I think it's justified,” Arum told Fight Hub TV’s Marcos Villegas of the practice, which he believes should be applied in moderation. “I don't think you do it with everybody.
“For example, if (unified welterweight titlist) Errol Spence is not going to be carrying on for a while and (Terence) Crawford expands his titles in the welterweight division, I can see down the road Sulaiman making Crawford a franchise champion.”
Of course, Crawford (36-0, 27KOs) hasn’t yet fought for the WBC welterweight title, nor will he likely do so in the near future.
For the moment, neither will Lomachenko, who currently holds the World Boxing Association (WBA) and World Boxing Organization (WBO) titles. His next fight will come with the attempt to add a third strap, as he is being groomed for a springtime showdown versus recently crowned International Boxing Federation (IBF) lightweight titlist Teofimo Lopez (15-0, 12KOs), in a bout where the winner will gain universal recognition as the World (lineal) lightweight champion.
As it relates to the alphabet world, it just won’t any longer be for the undisputed lightweight champion. Lomachenko and Top Rank created that problem when accepting the “Franchise” title in exchange for relinquishing the physical WBC belt he claimed in a 12-round points win over England’s Luke Campbell last August—a fight for which their side petitioned for the two-time Olympic Gold medalist and three-division titlist to be inserted into the WBC rankings, ahead of unbeaten Devin Haney.
Now has come a period where they are essentially freezing out Haney (24-0, 15KOs), who was upgraded from interim to full titlist following Lomachenko’s elevation, though no longer with the promise of a head-on collision.
For Lomachenko and his handlers, it makes it easier to target what they perceive as bigger fights—such as a three-belt unification clash with a rising star such as Brooklyn’s Lopez—without having to worry about honoring sanctioning body-mandated title defenses.
“People want to see a Lomachenko. People want to see a Crawford. People want to see a Canelo,” notes Arum of the practice of elite boxers enjoying a separate set of rules. And as long as these guys fights the best fighters available, then who wants to burden them with mandatories that nobody is interested in?”
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox