The Franchise
By Eddie Sanchez
Boxing is flooded with belts! There are four major sanctioning bodies and seventeen different weight classes.
There are even tiers of champions, such as interim, super, international, continental and youth. The WBC decided last year to further stir the pot a bit and created the Franchise Champion.
Per the WBC, “the franchise champion is a special designation and status which the WBC may bestow to a current WBC world champion, who is also an elite boxer and who has achieved and maintains the highest of stature in the sport.” To this point, only Canelo Alvarez and Vasyl Lomachenko, the top two pound for pound fighters in the world, have earned this designation.
In a sense, this is great for those fighters. The WBC attaches their brand to a fighter rather permanently, because this designation is not tied to a weight class, and therefore can travel with them as they move up or down in weight. There is a sense of prestige as well, given the WBC’s status and representation amongst the other sanctioning bodies in the boxing community.
The primary issue lands with the fans. Because this is a designated belt, other boxers cannot simply earn this from a victory over Canelo or Lomachenko. There are no mandatory challengers either, which compounds the fan grief because Canelo no longer has someone like undefeated Jermall Charlo breathing down his neck as a potential opponent.
The positive that can be taken from this, is that there are only two boxers with the designation and these two happen to be the most elite in the industry. If this was saturated heavily throughout each weight class, then additional criticism would be fair.
It’s interesting to note that the WBC’s Franchise Championship belt is currently making headlines today, June 18th.
“We don’t want the WBC to make Fury ‘franchise’ champion,” said Eddie Hearn to Boxing Social. “Let him take care of his mandatory, just like Joshua’s taking care of his (with Kubrat Pulev). We don’t want to be elevated from ‘interim’ champ. (Dillian Whyte) wants to fight the champion, he wants to fight Fury.”
These are very interesting comments from Eddie Hearn and there are a few key details to remember.
First, Dillian Whyte is promoted by Eddie Hearn, so one should look at these comments through those lenses.
Second, it has been rumored for years now that Hearn exercises extreme caution with his management of Anthony Joshua. Despite the boatloads of cash they could earn with fights against Fury and Wilder, there are whispers that Hearn would like to steer clear of those matchups for as long as possible.
Third, the WBO president recently claimed, “I would love to see WBO champion Anthony Joshua unify titles with former WBO champion and current WBC champ Tyson Fury for the undisputed heavyweight championship, but the next challenger should be the mandatory challenger for the WBO (Oleksandr Usyk).” These comments were well received from fans considering that the WBO is notorious for halting unifications in favor of mandatory challenges that benefit them. To see Eddie Hearn preemptively show dissatisfaction with Fury receiving the WBC Franchise Champion status (which would erase another hurdle from a potential Fury-Joshua match) is very telling.
Bob Arum, who promotes Fury in the United States, added this: “The mandatory situations are being worked out by all the organizations. It’s unfair to accelerate mandatories or keep them where they were because of the fact these fighters couldn’t fight for most of this year. Dillian Whyte can fight for an ‘interim’ title or whatever makes him happy, and after Joshua and Fury have their two fights, [Whyte can fight the winner], It’s probably better if Dillian Whyte fights Usyk to get a real contender. I think boxing is gonna be totally different after this coronavirus is over.”
Quite frankly, I agree with Arum’s rationale. The abundance of sanctioning bodies and mandatory challengers interfering with huge money making fights is something most fans are annoyed with, let alone when they could interfere with an Undisputed Heavyweight match.
It will be interesting to see how the WBC reacts to the speculation across the industry. Recently, Dillian Whyte has taken legal action against the WBC regarding his status as a mandatory challenger, which adds yet another layer to the drama show.
It’s unlikely that suing the WBC will lead to anything productive from Dillian’s point of view.
Tyson Fury also seems to agree with this notion: “He won’t get very far with suing because everything’s been put on hold, hasn’t it? It’s like the world has been put on hold, so everything has to move along with the hold back. But I’m sure his lawyers know what they’re doing with it all.”
With that, we will see where this all heads. As more information is reported, we will update on the status of these fighters. I know we are all interested to see how this mess gets sorted.
