Terence Crawford appears to have found his next opponent. Unfortunately the WBC and its president, Mauricio Sulaiman, that’s not great news.
Crawford, Uncrowned’s No. 1 pound-for-pound boxer, erupted on the sanctioning body Wednesday on Instagram after it stripped him of his WBC super middleweight title over a sanctioning fee dispute.
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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 this past September and Israil Madrimov in August 2024.
Sulaiman stated that the WBC charged Crawford 0.6% of his fight purse against Alvarez, rather than the standard 3% fee, due to the magnitude of the event. The WBC president used a reported number of $50 million for Crawford’s purse and requested $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 did not even receive an acknowledgement of receipt, nor any response to any of those communications.”
A fired-up Crawford responded at length to the WBC’s decision and Sulaiman’s comments in an explosive nine-minute video seemingly recorded from his car.
Excerpts from Crawford’s response:
“I see Mauricio got a lot to say about me not paying him $300,000 plus another $100k something for sanctioning fees. Then he’s going to tell me I ain’t even apologize. Like, who the f*** do you think I am? Boy, you’ve got to slap your f***ing self. I ain’t paying your a** s***. What the f*** you talking about, pay you $300,000? What makes you so motherf***ing better than any of the other sanctioning bodies? Huh? Answer that question. What makes you better than the WBO, the IBF, or the WBA? Everybody accepted what I was giving them, but you — you, the WBC, think that you better than everybody? Don’t you?
“You got the f***ing green belt, which don’t mean f***ing s***. The f***ing real belt is the Ring belt, which is free, motherf***er. [What] you talking about? You want me to pay you more than the other sanctioning bodies because you feel like you’re better than them? How in the world? All the sanction bodies agreed to the same amount, but you sit your motherf***ing ass up there and say that I need to apologize to you. The f***? You can take the f***ing belt. It’s a trophy anyway. [Why] the f*** am I paying you every time I step foot in the f***ing ring?”
“I’m the motherf***er that’s putting my life on the line, not you. You ain’t stepping your motherf***ing ass in that ring. You or nobody else. So why should I have to pay to carry your belt? You should be paying me, if you want to be truthful. It irks my nerves how this dude gets on a plane, gets a hotel suite — him and his buddies — they go out to dinner, five-star meals, all that, and guess who’s got to pay for it? Us fighters. We’re paying for y’all to come out here, have the time of your life, stay in the best hotels of your life, and it’s all done on our dime.”
“We’re the one out there getting battered, knocked upside our head, and every time we step foot in the ring, we’ve got to pay them a sanction fee like they got government — we getting taxed. It’s crazy.”
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Crawford went on to further applaud Saudi fight financier Turki Alalshikh — who has financed Crawford’s past two bouts — for elevating the Ring Magazine belt, which does not charge sanctioning fees to boxers.
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