World Boxing Council hit Russia

A general pleasant trend for Russia that has recently developed in boxing has violated the World Boxing Council (WBC). It turned out to be the only major structure that controls competitions in a popular form, which decided to apply tough sanctions to domestic athletes. They will not be able to fight through the WBC line, claim its titles, and are also excluded from the organization’s ratings. This decision is a blow to several fairly well-known Russian boxers occupying high positions in the classification, but will not affect the main star among them – the owner of the championship belt Artur Beterbiev. He lives in Montreal and has been entering the ring under the Canadian flag for some time now.

The World Boxing Council, one of four organizations, along with the World Boxing Association (WBA), the International Boxing Federation (IBF) and the World Boxing Organization (WBO), that govern professional boxing, has published solution, adopted at the congress in Acapulco in relation to athletes from Russia and Belarus. Noting that he stands for “equality, mutual respect and peace”, the WBC announced the exclusion of all Russian and Belarusian boxers from its rating against the background of the military operation in Ukraine, and that it would not sanction fights with their participation. And its head Mauricio Suleiman, expressing “deep regret” to the representatives of the “boxing community” of the two countries, specified that their citizens would not be able to fight for champion titles. Sanctions were introduced for an indefinite period – until the moment when “Ukraine will be able to resume normal boxing activities.”

And boxers can avoid sanctions, as the WBC put it, only in “special cases”. Those who are “permanently residing in other countries”, “have their citizenship” or are “a refugee who has publicly condemned Russia’s actions” are excluded from the sanctions list.

The WBC sanctions have spoiled a generally favorable trend for her in boxing. The WBA, IBF and WBO are still refusing to apply sanctions. And in October, the International Boxing Association (IBA) removed them, allowing Russian and Belarusian boxers to participate in international competitions: it controls amateur boxing.

The decision of the WBC is a rather serious blow for a whole group of Russian boxers. At the moment, in the official ratings of the structure, a total of 35 boxers appear, in which Russia is indicated in the “citizenship” column. Among them are several very famous athletes, such as Murat Gassiev (heavyweight), Evgeny Romanov (the so-called bridgerweight, up to 101.5 kg – a category used only by the WBC), Alexei Papin, Sergey Kovalev, Evgeny Tishchenko (all – up to 90, 7 kg), Pavel Silyagin (up to 76.2 kg), Alexander Besputin, Rajab Butaev (both up to 66.7 kg), Zaur Abdullaev (up to 61.2 kg). Some of these fighters – Romanov, Papin, Silyagin – are in the top three in the classification, that is, they should have had a chance to fight for the championship belt in the near future.

True, the main Russian boxing star, light heavyweight (up to 79.4 kg) Artur Beterbiev, who, in addition to the WBC title, owns the IBF and WBO titles, will not suffer because of the sanctions. He has been training for a long time and actually lives in Montreal, has Canadian citizenship and fought under the Canadian flag for his last fight – in June against American Joe Smith. Such a flag is in his profile and on the official website of the WBC.

But because of the sanctions of the structure, problems may arise with the long-discussed fight of Artur Beterbiev for the status of the absolute world champion, who owns all four belts. We are talking about his duel with another Russian Dmitry Bivol, who defended his WBA belt last weekend, having won Mexican Gilberto Ramirez. Bivol performs under the flag of Russia.

Alexey Dospekhov