By Sean Jones: The winner of this Saturday’s Canelo Alvarez – Jermell Charlo will be awarded the WBC’s newly created special ‘Puebla’ belt. It is one of many of the WBC’s commemorative belts they’ve created since 2013.
The Canelo-Charo fight is interesting enough for it to be without any new special belts created for the occasion, but I guess the WBC couldn’t resist.
In Sean Jones’s last count, this is WBC’s 28th commemorative belt they’ve created for historic fights since 2013.
Fans on social media are critical of the WBC creating a new belt, suspecting that this is a move to weasel a bit more sanctioning fee money on top of the 168-lb title that Canelo currently holds with that organization.
Other WBC commemorative belts:
Puebla-Jalisco
Huichol II
Mestizo
Juneteenth I
Crypto
Teotihuacan
24K Gold
Emerald
Onyx
Huichol I
Money
There’s a lot more WBC commemorative belts they’ve had at stake for big fights over the years. Fans want to have fewer belts, not more, as the four sanctioning bodies have made it difficult to identify who the true champions are over paper champs, who picked up their belts due to careful match-making by their wily promoters.
With the sanctioning bodies polluting the sport with their many world titles, it’s lessened the value of what it means to be a champion. It’s like having four Super Bowls every year.
“A special trophy that Mexico and boxing award to the fighters who face each other on the two most representative dates for Mexico, May 5 (Battle of Puebla) and September 16 (Independence Day),” per WBC’s website on their rationale for creating the belt.
The WBC Presents Puebla Belt
Commemorative belt to be presented to the winner of #CaneloCharloPowered by #YaocaBoxinghttps://t.co/TzDymWhJhl pic.twitter.com/BD0qyVC4wa
— World Boxing Council (@WBCBoxing) September 25, 2023
Stephen A. Smith: “Charlo has to stay away. Box, jab, stick, move, and do not stand in front of Canelo Alvarez at all,” said Stephen A. Smith on his Forum.
Shannon Sharpe: Are you afraid that a loss by Charlo will ruin any chance of a Crawford-Charlo.”
Stephen A: “It’s not that they would ruin the fight. There is such a thing as getting softened up where somebody distributes a level of punishment that it makes you more susceptible to punishment down the road.
“See, Crawford is smaller, so he’ll hit faster; he can also fight southpaw, not just conventional, and he could be, as Errol Spence learned.
“He can beat you in a myriad of ways, but the difference is that this Charlo right now is in perfect condition to match up with him and say, ‘I can take that power,’ but if you are exposed to too much punishment from Canelo, then you could fight Crawford two years from now but you never fully recovered, and that is my concern.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv4EThpLFq0
“I want him to stay away from Canelo. Stay the hell away from him. Run, run, run all day. Box and move.
Sharp: “You’re not going to get my money. I want to see some blows.”
Stephen A: “I don’t mean it that way.”