{"id":475415,"date":"2026-02-14T23:48:24","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T23:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/475415\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T23:48:24","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T23:48:24","slug":"wbc-addresses-david-benavidezs-world-title-status-ahead-of-moving-up-in-weight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/475415\/","title":{"rendered":"WBC addresses David Benavidez’s world title status ahead of moving up in weight"},"content":{"rendered":"

WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman has confirmed whether David Benavidez<\/a>, who faces unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto Ramirez in May, will keep hold of his world title at 175lbs.<\/p>\n

The sanctioning body came under heavy criticism after it was announced that Shakur Stevenson would no longer be in possession of his WBC lightweight title.<\/p>\n

This news emerged shortly after the American\u2019s dominant points victory over Teofimo Lopez last month<\/a>, which saw him claim the WBO strap at 140lbs.<\/p>\n

Prior to moving up in weight, Stevenson had outlined the possibility of him bouncing back down to 135lbs, where he expected to maintain his world championship status after defeating Lopez.<\/p>\n

Sulaiman, however, has since explained that the 28-year-old\u2019s management team never submitted a formal request in writing<\/a>, causing Stevenson to lose his WBC title in the aftermath.<\/p>\n

If such a request was accepted, then Stevenson would have been expected to pay $120,000 to the WBC, which is less than the 3% sanctioning fee they require for world title fights.<\/p>\n

But even so, many have argued that this rule is unfair on the champions, who must still pay a considerable fee when they are involved in a non-WBC title fight.<\/p>\n

Yet despite this backlash, WBC light-heavyweight champion Benavidez has nonetheless submitted a request of such nature to Sulaiman, allowing him to retain his green and gold belt while challenging for Ramirez\u2019s WBO and WBA titles later this year.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Chris Mannix<\/a>, Sulaiman confirmed this to be the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to keep your [WBC] title, there are specific rules, and these rules have been in place for decades.<\/p>\n

\u201cBenavidez is fighting in May, as WBC light-heavyweight champion, and he\u2019s fighting [at] cruiserweight for another organisation.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe made the petition in [writing, to keep his WBC title], and it\u2019s the exact same case that is the way it\u2019s done by the WBC rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Benavidez abiding by the rules, it therefore seems that the WBC is unlikely to change their directive any time soon, despite high-profile fighters such as Stevenson and Terence Crawford taking a firm stance against them.<\/p>\n

As for Benavidez, he has made it clear that his intention is to drop back down in weight to face Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev. His WBC belt will be a key factor in negotiating those match-ups.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman has confirmed whether David Benavidez, who faces unified cruiserweight champion Gilberto Ramirez in May,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-475415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}