Errol Spence Jr took some time out of his press conference with Terence Crawford to question the sanctioning bodies, their cut of fighter purses in particular.
The undefeated and elite operator collected his first welterweight belt from Kell Brook in 2017. He would add the WBC to his collection in 2019 with a decision win over Shawn Porter, and a stoppage of Yordenis Ugas in 2022 gave him the WBA.
In an attempt to complete the four-belt puzzle, he has signed to face WBO Champion, Terence Crawford.
It’s a bonafide mage fight in terms of the accumulative skill that will be inside the ropes come July 29 in Las Vegas. The winner will leave the ring undisputed and, in the eyes of many, the best fighter on the planet.
Despite looking for the legacy that Crawford’s title can give him, Spence publicly questioned the sanctioning bodies and their motivation at a recent press conference.
“We giving three percent to these organisations. I mean, we gotta know where this money’s going to. A lot of times man you got Canelo and Joshua and all these guys making fifty million dollars and these belts getting three percent of that.
Where’s it going to? How’s it helping the fighters? What are they doing with it?”
Many fighters have voiced a similar opinion over the years, and it particularly stings for unified champions like Spence, who have to pay a percentage of their gross earnings per belt. It’s a bitter pill to swallow when the most common goal at world level is to become undisputed.
The WBC President, Mauricio Sulaiman, has said in the past that these fees are put back into the sport through the amateur scene, a clean doping programme that made headlines recently, research into women’s boxing, humanitarian efforts and more.
The sanctioning bodies don’t exactly always play well with fans either.
In fact, the failure to call mandatory challengers, permitted rematch clauses, and often inexplicable rankings are all factors in the boxing world looking for more transparency from the four major organisations.