Terence Crawford seems to have found his next opponent. Unfortunately for the WBC and its president, Mauricio Sulaiman, that is not great news.
Crawford, Uncrowned’s No. 1 pound-for-pound boxer, lashed out at the sanctioning body Wednesday on Instagram after it stripped him of his WBC super middleweight title over a dispute over a sanctioning fee.
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Sulaiman announced at the WBC convention in Bangkok, Thailand, in the early hours of Wednesday morning, that Crawford had been stripped of his undisputed status for failing to pay WBC sanctioning fees for his fights against Saul “Canelo” Alvarez in September and Israil Madrimov in August 2024.
Sulaiman stated that the WBC charged Crawford 0.6% of the purse of his fight against Alvarez, rather than the standard fee of 3%, because of the magnitude of the event. The WBC president used a reported figure of $50 million for Crawford’s purse and demanded $300,000 in sanctioning fees.
“The WBC sent multiple communications to champion Crawford, his manager, and his legal counsel,” Sulaiman said. “Very unfortunately, the WBC has not even received confirmation of receipt, nor any response to any of those communications.”
The sacked Crawford responded at length to the WBC decision and Sulaiman’s comments in an explosive nine-minute video apparently recorded from his car.
Excerpts from Crawford’s response:
“I see Mauricio got a lot to say about me not paying $300,000 plus $100k something else for sanctioning fees. Then he’s going to tell me I won’t even apologize. Like, who the f*** do you think I am? Boy, you have your slap. $300,000 What makes you so much better than any sanctioning body Huh? What makes you better than the WBO, the IBF, or the WBA, but you, the WBC, you?
“You got the green belt f***, which doesn’t mean f*** s***. The real f*** belt is the Ring belt, which is free, motherf***er. [What] you talk about? Do you want to pay you more than the other sanctioning bodies because you feel you are better than them? How in the world? All the sanctioning bodies agreed to the same amount, but you put your ass on your ass and say I need to apologize. The f***? You can take the belt f***. It’s a trophy anyway. [Why] the f*** am I paying you every time I step foot in the f*** ring?”
“I’m the motherf***er who’s putting my life on the line, not you. You’re not putting your ass in that ring. You or anyone else. So why should I pay to carry your belt? You should be paying me, if you want to be truthful. It gets on my nerves how this guy gets on a plane — suite, takes him out to a hotel —, and takes him out to a hotel. meals, all that, and guess what who should pay for these fighters We’re paying for you to come out here, have the time of your life, stay in the best hotels of your life, and it’s all done on a dime.
“We’re the only ones out there who get beaten, knocked on our heads, and every time we step into the ring, we’ve got to pay them a penalty like they got the government – we get taxed. It’s crazy.”
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Crawford went on to further praise Saudi fight financier Turki Alalshikh — who has financed Crawford’s last two bouts — for raising the Ring Magazine belt, which does not impose sanctioning fees on boxers.