Crawford made 'in recess' champ by WBC; Canelo faces IBF purse bid
Two of boxing's pound-for-pound best have decisions to make
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Monday brought notable news for two of boxing’s best fighters, unified welterweight champion Terence Crawford and undisputed super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez.
Here are the details:
Crawford
Since Crawford’s tour de force ninth-round knockout of Errol Spence Jr. to unify the welterweight division and become the first-ever four-belt undisputed 147-pound champion in their long-awaited showdown in July it has been only a matter of time until the belts splintered.
That process continued on Monday when the WBC announced that Crawford had been relieved of its welterweight title and re-classified as its “champion in recess.”
“The WBC Board of governors has voted in favor of our proud WBC welterweight champion, Terence Crawford, to be placed as champion in recess in the welterweight division,” the WBC said in a statement.
Crawford has no plans to defend his belts at welterweight anyway and is moving up to junior middleweight to challenge WBA titleholder Israil Madrimov on Aug. 3 at BMO Stadium in Los Angeles in the main event of the first Riyadh Season-backed card in the United States.
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Madrimov (10-0-1, 7 KOs), 29, an Uzbekistan native, who fights out of Indio, California, stopped Magomed Kurbanov to win the vacant WBA belt on the Anthony Joshua-Francis Ngannou undercard on March 8 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
In addition, Crawford’s fight with Madrimov was previously sanctioned for the vacant WBO interim junior middleweight title and the WBC also said on Monday as part of its announcement that the bout would serve as a final elimination bout for a shot at its 154-pound crown held by WBC/WBO titleholder Sebastian Fundora.
The WBC added that Crawford “will inform the WBC which division he wishes to compete in after the August fight.”
Crawford was previously stripped of the IBF title for declining to face Jaron “Boots” Ennis, who was the IBF’s interim titlist and his mandatory challenger. Ennis was elevated to IBF titleholder.
The WBO already addressed the successor to Crawford as its welterweight titleholder on May 18 when Brian Norman Jr. knocked out Giovani Santillan in the 10th round to win the organization’s interim title. Norman will eventually become the full titleholder once Crawford vacates around the Aug. 3 bout. Far less likely is that Crawford would return to welterweight and defend against Norman.
The WBA has Eimantas Stanionis its “regular” welterweight titleholder and it would follow the same process as the WBO in that Stanionis would become the organization’s sole 147-pound titleholder when Crawford vacates since there is also virtually no chance he would return to the division to make a mandatory defense against Stanionis.
Mario Barrios is the WBC interim titleholder but the organization has no plans at the moment to elevate him to its full titleholder.
“We will wait for now,” WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman told Fight Freaks Unite on Monday night. “Barrios just fought and we will evaluate the welterweight scenario before making any decision.”
Barrios outpointed Fabian Maidana in his first interim defense on May 4 on the Canelo Alvarez-Jaime Munguia undercard in Las Vegas.
Crawford (40-0, 31 KOs), 36, of Omaha, Nebraska, has won world titles in three divisions: lightweight, junior welterweight and welterweight. He has been the undisputed champion at junior welterweight and welterweight, only one of three men, along with Naoya Inoue (bantamweight and junior featherweight) and Oleksandr Usyk (cruiserweight and heavyweight), to be a four-belt undisputed champion in two divisions.
Alvarez
Representatives for William Scull, Alvarez’s obscure IBF mandatory challenger, requested an immediate purse bid to determine promotional rights to a fight with Alvarez, whose IBF mandatory defense is next up in the rotation system to determine the order of mandatories for unified champions.
Two weeks ago, barely a week after Alvarez outpointed Jamie Munguia to retain all the belts, the IBF ordered Alvarez and Scull to begin negotiations for the mandatory bout and gave them 30 days to make a deal or it would order a purse bid.
However, as is the right of either side, Scull representative Hagen Doering of AGON Sports & Events notified the IBF that they wanted an immediate purse bid rather than to negotiate a possible deal. So, on Monday, the IBF notified all of its registered promoters that the purse bid would take place on June 6 at the IBF offices in Springfield, New Jersey (also via video conference) at 12 p.m. ET, although the sides could still make a deal until 11:45 a.m.
Under IBF rules, in order to participate in the auction, the promoters must submit a nonrefundable $5,000 participation fee and 10 percent of the total bid amount (which is refundable if they don’t win). The winning bidder must forward another 10 percent of their bid total within five business days.
Deep on the non-televised undercard of when Alvarez (61-2-2, 39 KOs), 33, of Mexico, defeated Munguia, Scull (22-0, 9 KOs), 31, a Cuba native fighting out of Germany, won an eight-round decision over Sean Hemphill, 79-72, 78-73 and 76-75 after making a deal to be on the show indicating that their sides were in communication about the situation, which is why it was a surprise that Scull requested the immediate purse bid.
Scull has been the IBF mandatory challenger since a wide decision win over Evgeny Shvedenko in a final eliminator in July 2022, but the title fight was only ordered now because it is now the IBF’s turn in the rotation system.
Alvarez, who is a promotional free agent following his one-fight deal with PBC for the Munguia bout, could fight Scull next; vacate the IBF title; or attempt to make a deal for him to step aside as was the case, for example, when Jermell Charlo made multiple step-aside deals with little known Bakhram Murtazaliev when he was the IBF junior middleweight mandatory challenger. Charlo ended up eventually vacating and Murtazaliev went on to win the vacant belt.
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Rather than being next in the "rotation", it seems the IBF lost patience with the WBC and WBA's refusal to call their mandatories with them instead providing inducements to Benavidez and Morrell to move up a division. Scull, Berlanga, it's all the same to me - substandard fights to keep the Canelo gravy train rolling. Watching some rich guy collect more money holds no interest to me.
Serious Question, because I do respect his talent. But has any "All Time Great" Boxer in history, had an easier route to that accolade than Bud Crawford? They're just tossing belts at him now smh. Any other Boxer (Tank, Haney being recent examples) would be getting a ton of grief. HE Turki has warped Boxing for the better and now for the worse as well. Isaac Newton proven correct once more.