Teofimo Lopez Says Crawford Never Became Undisputed at 168 After Skipping WBC Fee

Teofimo Lopez says Terence Crawford failed to become the undisputed super middleweight champion from his victory over four-belt champion Canelo Alvarez because he refused to pay the WBC their sanctioning fee for their fight last September.

Why Crawford Never Held All Four Belts

Lopez states that Crawford didn’t complete the process to become the undisputed at 168. He paid for three but didn’t pay the WBC’s fee to hold their belt, meaning he never possessed the belt. He was a three-belt champion.

Crawford will have to be satisfied with being a former two-division undisputed champion, not a three. If he wants to become undisputed in three divisions, he’ll need to circle back and fight the winner of the Christian Mbilli vs. Hamzah Sheeraz fight. Those two will be fighting for the vacant WBC 168-lb title. Crawford will need a lot of luck beating the winner of that fight, as those are big punchers and are young.

It doesn’t work for Crawford to say he was the undisputed at 168, because the WBC belt was never fully owned by him. It’s like a person going into Marine Corps boot camp, then deciding to jump the fence into San Diego and skip out during boot camp at MCRD. They can’t go around telling people they’re an ex-Marine because they didn’t complete the process. It’s the same with Crawford. He can’t go home on the block and brag about something that never happened.

He didn’t complete the crucial last part of becoming the undisputed champion at 168 by paying the sanctioning fee to the WBC. He chose to be tight-fisted when it came to the $300,000 fee for the belt, which a reduced fee especially for him by the WBC from the $1.5 million they he should have had to pay for the $50 million he made.

WBC Fee: The Missing Piece

“Canelo and Crawford was indeed for the undisputed. This was indeed accurate as long as they paid for the sanctioning bodies, but Crawford left out one, and that was the WBC. So, by default on paper, he’s not undisputed,” said Teofimo Lopez to the media today, pointing out that Terence Crawford never officially became the undisputed super middleweight champion because he refused to pay the WBC.

$300K Grovel Job at WBC HQ

Is it too late for Crawford? He can try going to the WBC and groveling with $300K in hand, asking them for another chance. Maybe if he brings the money to their headquarters, apologizes to the WBC president, and agrees to pay the full amount of $1.5 million, they’ll give him a second chance. It’s worth a try. Terence needs the WBC belt to make history and become a three-division undisputed champion. It also strengthens his negotiating muscle for a rematch with Canelo.

“No, he didn’t pay for the sanctioning belt,” said Alvarez when a media member from the crowd questioned him about whether Crawford was the undisputed 168-lb champion for his win over Canelo last September. Regardless of whether Mauricio didn’t want to or not, he did not pay for the sancitoning belt. So by default, he got stripped, so it became unified.

“They could do it with me for my super WBC belt, and I paid for that sanctioning belt,” said Lopez.