I'm of mixed minds on this. My first is...good. I'm tired of champions who are not or have no intention of defending their titles holding up divisions while boxers pay sanctioning fees to not get a title shot. On the other hand...holy goodness the hypocrisy by these bodies in their treatment of certain fighters over others.
Somewhere on a couch in Texas, Jermall Charlo has just awoken in a cold sweat. His inactivity senses are tingling.
Yeah the inconsistency is galling. You've got certain WBC fighters who haven't had a mandatory in years or just not even fought in years, but if you don't belong to PBC they then enforce their rules to the letter. The double standard is obviously to everyone. But this is how it should be, if you move up to fight for another belt then you vacate or get stripped. I'm just hoping Loma/Stevenson gets made. As a Stevenson fan, I'm looking forward to seeing him face a true elite fighter for the first time.
I agree with stripping him of the title BUT wtf are they playing at? Strip Fury also then. You can’t treat the fighters differently, especially when Haney is actually stepping up to fight a real fight against Regis. Tyson is fighting Ngannou ffs. Strip that guy also. WBC need to be careful, in a politically correct world that we are all forced to live in it could quite easily be perceived as the black fighter getting worse treatment.
I would like to see Haney vs Loma rematch first and than Loma can fight Shakur for sure Loma still got it and Shakur is unproven at 135. Let's see the fight. It's better fight than Haney vs Regis.
Haney is being stripped because he is moving up to 140 to fight Prograis for the WBC Title which is fair, especially since Sandor Martin is mandatory and the WBC gave Haney special permission. Haney is also being treated fairly as can move back down and fight the winner of Stevenson against Lomachenko / Cruz / Frank Martin / William Zepeda. The real question is whether Haney vs Prograis will be on regular DAZn or DAZN PPV.
Champion in Recess isn't the same thing as getting stripped. All it means is that Haney will have to fight a mandatory/interim titlist if he chooses to come back down to 135. It's not the same as starting over; he's locked in to a title bout the moment he comes back to 135. I like what the WBC is doing, actually, because rather than wait on Haney -- who may decide to stay at 140 and end up just wasting everyone's time at 135 -- the WBC already will have a new champion ready to go. The same thing should be happening at 154. No problem with Charlo moving up, but we're not going to wait on you. So you come back down and fight the interim champ or can just stay there and the interim becomes permanent.
Strip Fury and Strip both Charlos while they're at it. They won't strip Mell, because they see dollar signs when he fights Canelo. They won't strip Fury either because 1 defense is a lot of money for We Be Crooks.