Mauricio Sulaiman, the WBC president, says that rival governing bodies should match their mandatory contenders against each other in order to make it more straightforward for undisputed and unified champions keep hold of multiple titles.
It might not have garnered much appreciation for the WBC, WBA, WBO and IBF, but the number of world title unifications has sky-rocketed in the last few years.
Between 1988 (when the WBO was formed) there was only one male boxer, Bernard Hopkins, who unified all four world titles until 2017.
There are currently three undisputed male world champions – Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, Jermell Charlo and Devin Haney – as well as five boxers who hold three of the four belts.
Indeed, of the WBC’s 18 world champions (including bridgerweight, which none of the other three recognize), nine are unified champions.
The situation has not happened by accident, but a succession of meetings between the rival bodies’ presidents has helped smooth the way to more regular unifications. Now Sulaiman wants to go further, by lightning the number of mandatory defenses that unified champions face.
Holding four belts should mean facing four mandatory challengers, which, even if their order is pre-agreed, leaves little room for a champion to chase big fights.
But if each mandatory was handed an eliminator against another mandatory before getting their shot, the champion would face a more proven challenger, rather than one that could have gone to the top of the rankings by default,
“We are doing our best to make sure that the mandatory contender is of the highest value,” Sulaiman. “I have discussed within the organizations to do elimination bouts within mandatory challengers. Then the unified champion would not have to face mandatory after mandatory after mandatory.
“That will take time. Hopefully everybody will be on board to make it happen, but the WBC is doing its best to continue along this path.”
Mandatories have got a bad name of late, largely because with four different sets of rankings, a boxer can over time find his way creeping near the top of the rankings as other boxers lose, rather than any big wins the boxer might have achieved.
Indeed, as ratings are manipulated, it can be counter-productive for highly-ranked boxers to take risks when there will be a title shot coming along if they just wait long enough.
And Sulaiman can barely hide his annoyance at the WBA decision to order Josh Taylor to defend his super-lightweight title against Alberto Puello. effectively ending his reign as undisputed champion,
“The problem is that when you become a mandatory contender you get certain rights,” Sulaiman said. “The problem is when the mandatory contender abuses those rights.
“Having so many champions with different organizations, the quality in the challengers can often dilute. We must be careful that a mandatory challenger from any organization should be a real challenge for a unified champion.
“Otherwise we will end up with the situation that happened to Josh Taylor. The WBA came up with a completely unworthy mandatory contender and a purse bid took place for $200,000, which is ridiculous for Josh Taylor and now he is not undisputed any longer in that division.”
However, Sulaiman emphasized the importance of mandatory challengers, which is often the only route where a worthy contender can get a title shot without strings attached.
“The WBC introduced the mandatory contender rule because of Jose Napoles (legendary welterweight champion in 60s and 70s) who was No 1 for six years but the champion would not give him a chance,” Sulaiman said. “The same thing happened to a few fighters who got to No 1 but were not given an opportunity for a long time. As everything there are exceptions and mistakes, but the problem comes when the rule is abused.
“But if a person wins one or two elimination bouts, that gets them to a level where they can become mandatory.
“Each organization has their own rule about how they get to the mandatory. If we work together and try to unify our own procedures, that can be a success.”
Sulaiman believes that if the governing bodies continue to work together, progress can be made to clean up the confusion around multiple champions, which will be a big step forward for fans and those who want the sport to gain more popularity.
“We have had several meetings within the presidents and the intention is to give boxing and the fans a structural platform,” he said. “They want to see one world champion per division and it will help boxing get a clearer following. We have a great platform to make that happen, we’ve had great flexibility in our rules and our rulings.
“The structure of boxing is very different to other sports. There is no season, there are no fixtures, everything is independent events. In other sports like football, American football, basketball, the business side is controlled by the league. Here it is not.
“So, the promoters are in charge of the business and they are all independent, with individual networks and sponsors. But the promoters are doing a great job understanding the value of an undisputed champion or a unified champion.
“The problem is that the organizations really have to commit to make changes. It is not easy.
“I see good faith, especially with the WBO and the IBF, we have had good discussions, moving forward it is a slow process because everyone has their own rules.
“But I can say, from the WBC side, we are all for unity, we are all for the fans and the promoters and giving them support and making the big thing happen.”
Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.
