Terence Crawford has been stripped of his World Boxing Council super middleweight title following a dispute over unpaid penalties. The decision puts Britain's Hamza Shiraz in line to fight for the vacant belt.
WBC announced Wednesday that it suspended the American star as its champion three months after he shocked Canelo Alvarez in Las Vegas to become undisputed at 168 pounds. The organization said Crawford failed to pay required purses for that win or his previous fight in 2024, despite “multiple” attempts to contact him and his team.
With the title now vacant, the WBC ordered its interim champion Christian Mbilli to fight Shiraz for the belt. The 26-year-old from Ilford made an explosive arrival to the division in July when he demolished local favorite Edgar Berlanga at the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens. A win over Mbilli will make Shiraz the new world champion in one of the UK's glamorous boxing divisions.
Crawford's situation reflects familiar tensions in sports. Sanctioning bodies such as the WBC, WBA, IBF and WBO charge fighters a percentage of their purse – usually around 3% – to compete for belts. The size of the fees has long been a source of controversy, with critics arguing that the organizations wield significant power while operating with little oversight.
In Crawford's case, the WBC says it reduced the purse for his fight against Alvarez from 3% to 0.6% due to his $50 million (£37.6 million) purse – a figure believed to be around $300,000 – and planned to funnel much of that money to a charity that supports former fighters. However, the 38-year-old Nebraska resident has reportedly not responded to any messages regarding the payments.
“This is very unfortunate,” WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman said as he announced the decision at the governing body's annual meeting in Bangkok. He called the lack of response a “slap in the face,” although Crawford has made no public comments, and it remains unclear whether the missed payments were a conscious choice or simply a case of a superstar with other priorities.
One thing is clear: his reign as undisputed champion ended almost as quickly as it began. Crawford still holds the WBO, IBF and WBA belts but has hinted that he could return to middleweight for future fights.
For Shiraz, the politics behind the scenes matter far less than the opportunity that materializes in front of him. Mbilli, a French-Cameroonian based in Montreal who is unbeaten in 30 fights, is a high-pressure, high-volume fighter, while the 6-foot-3 Shiraz has the physical advantages of 6½ inches in height and 3 inches in reach. Their meeting, not yet officially scheduled, promises to be one of the most significant British fights of the first half of next year.
Already the first man in the four-belt era to completely unify titles in two different divisions, Crawford did so in the third when he moved up two weight classes and won a dominant 12-round unanimous decision over Alvarez in front of a record crowd of 70,482 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, an achievement without precedent in modern boxing. The 168-pound title made him a five-division champion, having previously won belts from 135 to 154 pounds.
Two weeks after a career-defining victoryCrawford was involved in a controversial police stop in his hometown. Hours after Omaha held a parade in his honor, police officers ordered him out of his car at gunpoint during a late-night traffic stop on a reckless driving charge. Video of the incident was widely circulated and prompted the police chief to launch an internal investigation.
Crawford's security chief said he feared for their safety, and the mayor called for a full review and stressed the importance of maintaining trust between police and the community. No arrests were made.
