The World Boxing Association (WBA) has been studying each category in an effort to make decisions that will contribute to the world title reduction plan that has been underway for the past couple of months.
Initial actions such as the elimination of interim titles were the first steps in this plan and that has been joined by different decisions that have been taken while continuing to devise other ways to reduce the number of champions, always based on the rules of the pioneering body.
The panorama of each weight is different but in all of them the same objective is being sought and that is to have a single world champion.
The welterweight box-off in which Yordenis Ugas, Eimantas Stanionis, Radzhab Butaev and Jamal James are participating stands out. Ugas must fight Stanionis for the Super Championship and the winner will fight Butaev, who previously defeated James.
The minimumweight champion Victor Saludar will fight former interim champion Erick Rosa on December 21, in the Dominican Republic. The winner could face Thammanoon Niyomtrong next.
In the light flyweight division, the bout between super champion Hiroto Kyoguchi and champion Esteban Bermudez was ordered, whose bidding will take place on Friday, November 12.
In the flyweight division, a division in which there is only one champion, Artem Dalakian will fight his mandatory bout against Luis Concepcion on Saturday, November 20, in Ukraine.
For his part, Joshua Franco, as super flyweight champion, has already been designated mandatory challenger of the winner of the fight between Juan Francisco Estrada (super champion) and Roman Gonzalez.
At bantamweight, Naoya Inoue, the only champion, will make an optional defense on December 14 against Aran Dipen.
Leigh Wood and Michael Conlan will clash in a mandatory fight for the featherweight title ( in Wood’s hands) and the winner will face super champion Leo Santa Cruz.
In addition, super featherweight champion Roger Gutierrez has been ordered to fight his mandatory Chris Colbert in the next few months.
The WBA is continuing to study the different cases and all categories in order to make decisions and further reduce the number of world champions.
Why don’t they reduce the number of WBA titles to zero….then they can close down.
Best suggestion for 2021.
And take the rest of the organizations as well.
Well if the WBA can stick to their plan, good on them and good for boxing.
How is it good for boxing to have seventeen divisions-too many if only one champion in each.?
Get rid of the “Super Champion” and “Champion in Recess” nonsense. Then, maybe, you’ll steer away from the “We Belt Anybody” acronym.
I can get this done for them in 10 MINUTES…WHY did they do all of this in the first place??? REVERSING THIS WOULD BE EASY.
We fans cannot critisize’s WBA decision to stop with this shit because we are asking for it for so long !!! Finally a good move made by the oldest sanctionning body in boxing, well done…