WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman has broken his silence on the decision to declare Shakur Stevenson’s WBC Lightweight World title ‘vacant’ just days after his career-best victory over Teofimo Lopez.
Stevenson moved up from lightweight – where he won the WBC belt back in November of 2023 – to super-lightweight to challenge Teofimo Lopez for his WBO title. Though looking comfortable at the weight and registering a career-best performance, it is understood that a drop back down to 135lbs was not off the table.
However, just four days on from the victory, the WBC announced that Stevenson was no longer its champion at lightweight. Speaking to Chris Mannix about the controversial move, Sulaiman gave his side of the story.
“We received a call from [Stevenson’s] management in which they requested the WBC to have Shakur Stevenson fight in a different weight category while maintaining the lightweight championship … They even asked for a special belt for the fight.
“We explained clearly that it is within the WBC rules, and that I would be very happy to convey that to the board and make it happen, because Shakur has been associated since 2019. I told his management they needed to send a written request in order to start all the process. From that point on, we had another couple of conversations. They were supposed to send a written request, which didn’t happen.”
Sulaiman says he still put the request for the Lopez fight forward at the annual convention and it was voted in favour, but insisted to Stevenson’s team that the WBC still required ‘everything in writing.’ He continued to request this, even involving Matchroom Boxing as the event’s promoter, but ultimately ‘never received anything in writing to be given final authorisation.’
It is because of these circumstances he pushes back on the idea that Stevenson was ‘stripped’ of the belt – semantics that many will disagree with.
“We did not strip Shakur. [His] management elected not to comply and they eventually vacated the title because they did not comply. We have written proof of everything.”
When Stevenson initially responded to the announcement, he revealed that there was a request for $100,000 – later corrected to be $120,000 – in exchange for authorisation, as per the sanctioning body’s rules. Sulaiman confirmed and stood by this.
“That is accurate … What we sent is, the WBC approves your petition to fight, and according to the WBC rules, a fee of $120,000, which is less than the 3% that should be … By the way they could contact us and say ‘we are making this’ – and we have adjusted the sanctioning fees many times … It is not about the money, it’s the rule. Of course a fighter who is recognised by the WBC as a world champion has a validity, has a seal of having a position in the boxing world at that time.”
Neither side seems close to yielding on what the other deems to be the correct action, and it is as yet unclear if Stevenson will actively avoid competing for a WBC belt in the future.
What is clear is that the controversy for the WBC comes at an increasingly volatile time in the sport, particularly given Dana White and Zuffa Boxing’s entry with the remit of a system without reliance the four major sanctioning bodies.
