Reflections: Mandatory challengers... make it make sense!

Reflections: Making Them Right

GBN's Scottish scribe, Donald C Stewart, reflects on the bizarre choices made by some of the governing bodies in boxing...

I'll be honest, I felt a little bad that in my last column, having a go at the WBA. It's not because I felt guilty that the WBA don't deserve the criticism, but I felt that singling them out perhaps was unfair.

There are other sanctioning bodies out there who make the Zuffa Boxing contention that what they want to do is to have one champion far more credible because boxing as usual likes to take off its socks and shoes, find a large double-barrelled shotgun, point it at its big toe and fire, twice just to make sure.

In essence, it always manages to shoot itself in the foot.

The fight between Ryan Garcia and Connor Benn, which happened a few weeks ago, heightened the idea that the WBC, who are never short or shy of a controversy, have done it again.

They handed Zuffa and critics evidence that the alphabet soup of belts is something that has had its time and should be stopped.

Why? Ryan Garcia legitimately beat Mario Barrios for the WBC Championship belt at 147, did he not? Well… Garcia has had well-documented troubles, and a few years ago, I had written a column suggesting somebody should go and have a word with the young man, because he clearly wasn't well. He was stumbling around in ways that looked like he was having some form of an episode that needed an intervention.

As far as I'm aware, few read and fewer heeded my advice, which is absolutely fine. It was, after all, an opinion.

What did I know? He got up and won himself a world title with the WBC.

All good. What was I even thinking.

The WBC then, in their infinite wisdom decided that a man who had not fought at 147 pounds for four years should be his mandatory number one challenger.

On top of that, the WBC decided that a man who had failed two tests and had gone into meltdown, demonstrating that he was struggling with what he was being accused of, should become their number one mandatory challenger.

Not only that, the WBC decided to help that same man, literally and metaphorically, by handing him a defence over his failed drug tests, but should still become a mandatory number one challenger for their 147 belt.

All of the welterweight contenders who were in the rankings for the WBC were shoved aside. Not only that, the man that they decided was going to be number one in their rankings had not fought and therefore never defeated anybody else in the top 10 of their WBC rankings.

If you are sitting in Zuffa Boxing, you don't need to make an argument over just how idiotic the belts are. All you have to do is to sit and wait until the WBC or others issue their latest press release and they prove it all for you.

Just when I was beginning to get my head around the WBC, Hamzah Sheeraz has relinquished his WBO super-middleweight title because he refused to get in the ring with Janibek Alimkhanuly. Alimkhanuly has just come back from a ban for failing a drugs test.

Instead of going to the bottom of the pile and trying his best to get himself fit and into contention, he was thrown in as a mandatory challenger.

This was a step too far for the Brit. “I think it's a joke,” he said. “I think what the WBO has done here is disgraceful to the sport of boxing as well.”

So, if the WBA ain't done much to help boxers out and therefore give us, Boxing Aficionados, an argument against Zuffa Boxing, with the WBC and the WBO refusing to do the right thing and give the right person an opportunity, what hope have you got?

Settle for the single-coloured shots, anonymous boxing gloves, and less flash but more bang?

And what about sponsors? Many fighters need them to get through touch times. Their rewards? To see their name on Sky Sports. Not if your guy signs with the new image of boxing…

When shall we see sense in boxing? Probably the equivalent of searching for an upstairs in a bungalow, but we always hope.