Frank Warren won the purse bid for Hamzah Sheeraz’s defense against Janibek Alimkhanuly. Days later, Sheeraz gave up the WBO super middleweight title. Warren’s response raises a question Sheeraz’s next fight will have to answer: what was the belt worth if he would not defend it against this challenger?
“Very, very disappointed,” Warren said in an interview this week. “It was a purse bid. We bid the highest amount of money for it.” Queensberry’s winning bid was $1,001,809, with Sheeraz due roughly $750,000 under the purse split. Warren said to iFL TV his team had worked to put Sheeraz in position to win the title.
Sheeraz mentioned Alimkhanuly’s previous failed drug test in objecting to the WBO’s order. He has grounds to question the sanctioning body’s decision. Still, surrendering the belt after Queensberry won the bid leaves him open to another question: what fight is worth giving up a guaranteed title defense?
Alimkhanuly would have been a serious test. Sheeraz had trouble controlling the mobile Simon Zachenhuber in July and kept his title by majority decision, with one judge scoring the fight level. Against Alimkhanuly, he would have faced a southpaw with greater power and a stronger claim to world class standing.
Warren also criticized the advice Sheeraz is receiving, then said Queensberry still has a contract with him. If Sheeraz is approaching his final fight under that deal and intends to leave, Warren has little incentive to arrange an easy farewell. A dangerous opponent would give Queensberry a fight to sell and give Sheeraz another chance to prove himself. Warren has announced no such plan, but his frustration makes the next matchmaking decision worth watching.
A champion brings a belt to the table when pursuing Canelo Alvarez or another major fight. Sheeraz no longer has that bargaining chip. If his team has a better opportunity ready, it can make the decision look shrewd. Until then, fans have seen him leave a difficult fight and a world title behind.
Fans never buy noble moral stances when a fighter surrenders a title to avoid an absolute nightmare. If Janibek were a feather-fisted fringe contender or an overmatched mandatory, Sheeraz walking away over money or a past testing issue might pass the smell test. When the mandatory opponent happens to be an avoided Kazakh wrecking ball with an elite amateur pedigree, the narrative completely crumbles.
Janibek represents the worst possible opponent profile in professional boxing: high risk, modest commercial value, and desperate hunger. He has been frozen out of massive unification bouts for years precisely because champions know the danger he brings. He saw Sheeraz holding that WBO belt as his golden ticket to finally force the sport to take him seriously and secure the life-changing purses he has been chasing. Facing a motivated, heavy-handed southpaw who knows his entire career trajectory hinges on dismantling you is a terrifying proposition.
Sheeraz clearly did the math and panicked. Taking Janibek for seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars offered terrible risk-to-reward math, especially after Simon Zachenhuber exposed how vulnerable Sheeraz looks when opponents start landing clean counters. Getting knocked out on home soil by Janibek permanently erases the mystique Queensberry spent years building.
The public sees right through the sudden ethical concerns. Turning down a dangerous fight against a prime killer while simultaneously campaigning to share the ring with Canelo Alvarez—who served a well-documented suspension for clenbuterol—makes the excuse look laughably dishonest. Sheeraz wanted the prestige of calling himself a world champion, but when the real tax for holding that strap arrived at the purse bid, he chose self-preservation over genuine greatness.
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