By Allan Fox: The World Boxing Council stripped Andre Ward of his WBC super middleweight title on Thursday because he was still injured and hadn’t defended it since last September when he beat Chad Dawson.
The WBC instead will have Ward’s vacant WBC 168 lb. title on the line on June 8th when #1 WBC, Sakio Bika (31-5-2, KO’s) faces #4 WBC, Marco Antonio Periban (20-0, 13 KO’s) at the Home Depot Center, Carson, California, USA, according to Dan Rafael.
This move doesn’t really make a lot of sense because Floyd Mayweather Jr, the WBC welterweight champion, hasn’t defended his WBC title since capturing it in September of 2011 with a 4th round stoppage win over Victor Ortiz.
That was a year and a half ago. So Ward gets stripped of his WBC 168 lb. title because he hasn’t defended the belt in 7 months, but Mayweather gets to keep his WBC 147 lb. title when he hasn’t defended it in 1 ½ years.
That just seems wrong. Mayweather is finally defending his WBC title on May 4th, but it’s 1 ½ years later and you have to wonder why the WBC allowed Mayweather to keep his title but then decided to strip the arguably much less popular Andre Ward of his belt.
Some of the moves the WBC have been making lately seem rather odd. For example, they recently ranked Amir Khan at #2 WBC at 147 despite Khan never having fought in the welterweight division before and having lost 2 out of his last 3 fights.
The WBC ignored Khan’s lack of recent success in the ring and pushed him to #2 at 147 over fighters that are more deserving contenders.
The Bika-Periban fight would seem like the last one you could think of where a belt should be on the line. The Mexican Periban has never fought a top tier opponent before during his five year pro career and his resume is badly inflated. Bika was already soundly beaten by Ward in 2010 by a 12 round decision.
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