What has the WBA been up to? 2019

Hi all, I thought it was time for my periodic look at how the WBA continue to plague the sport. For those who keep up with my posts, know I’ve a long history in trying to highlight some of the WBA’s contributions. I haven’t seen much reference to this here, but let’s look at the new WBA champion - the WBA ‘Gold’ Champion. If you head over to the WBA website, you’ll see they now list 4 champions per division - Super, World, Interim and Gold. This championship seems to have been implemented very quietly, and there are no references to it in their regulations. Rumour has it, that it may serve as a mandatory position for the Regular belt, or even a mandatory position for the interim belt. So let’s look at how this may work at HW: Super Champion Ruiz Jr, whose mandatory is World Champion Manuel Charr, whose mandatory is either interim World Champion Trevor Bryon or Gold Champion Joe Joyce, who may actually be the mandatory for Trevor Bryon. Sadly, my prediction for an interim Super Champion hasn’t yet come true, unless this is what the Gold Champion is. I’m sure it will come one day. In other news, the WBA has shown their VADA backed Fair boxing policy to be a shambles. It is mandated that all WBA champions are VADA tested or lose their sanction. Pac/Thurman will not have VADA testing at all, with no reasonable explanation or alternative. There is already questions surrounding Pacquiao’s status with the WBA. He was given a Super Champion belt during the Matthysse build up, whilst Thurman was absent. You’ll find Pacquiao has the exact same belt as Thurman, despite the Regular belt being much more distinct. Perhaps there were plans to strip Thurman? Who knows. Denis Lebedev has been secretly installed as the cruiserweight Super Champion, despite being stripped of this status again. It has been done so secretly, that almost no website lists this. The WBA website does, however. At 140, Prograis has been elevated to Super Champion, allowing for another ‘regular’ championship to be created, between Barrios and Akhmedov. We need to be careful, as we are at a stage where one or more of these sanctioning bodies may end up taking over amateur boxing, at least at the Olympic level. With the collapse of the AIBA, imagine the WBA or WBC polluting the already damaged amateur scene? Big names are already vouching support - for example, Wladimir Klitschko is touting support for the WBA to take over the amateur side. There is a silver lining however. In our long quest for a fairer, more equal global society, we can rest easy knowing that, one day soon, we will all be WBA champions.