When the second oldest belt in the promotion is blocked, questions are bound to be raised. Recently, the WBC, WBO and WBA super middleweight champion Canelo Alvarez met the IBF champion William Scull in New York ahead of their fight on May 3. The Riyadh Season bout of the undisputed 168 title is an essential event and will set the stage for Cinnamon‘s deal with the Saudis.

While the event was rather routine, a moment during the final photo raised many eyebrows. It happened when His Excellency posed for pictures alongside the super middleweight duo. While HE Turki Alalshikhp proudly displayed the Ring Magazine title alongside the undisputed title on the line, he denied Canelo’s trainer Eddy Reynoso to bring the WBC title on the stage.

The incident significantly raised questions about boxing’s future. Furthermore, with the GEA chairman making a new boxing promotion with Dana White, the questions are becoming rampant. As the chaos is unfolding, Mexican boxing legend Mikey Garcia shares his opinion on the situation and what every belt means for the boxers.

Canelo Alvarez had no other choice

On Sunday, Mikey Garcia had a conversation with FightHype. With the WBC belt incident becoming the talk of the town, the interviewer asked the former four-division champion about it. After all, Garcia has been one of the best WBC lightweight champions the world has ever seen. However, it turns out that the 37-year-old had no idea about what went down. “I didn’t see, I don’t know what to make of it. I’m not sure what happened,” he stated.

The interviewer informed Garcia about how His Excellency is trying to elevate the ‘Ring Magazine’ belt in his new promotion. While the majority of the boxing world is doubtful regarding the Ring belt being the focal point, Garcia is fine with it. He also understood why Canelo Alvarez could not bring the belt on the stage after being denied. “It’s his belt now. So he’s going to push you know for. I mean it’s obviously marketing reasons and promotional reasons. I’m not against anything like that either. I mean if there’s any number one belt. Maybe they’re trying to clean up so many titles,” he said, excusing Canelo Alvarez of not bringing the belt on the stage.

According to him, “As a fighter I appreciate every belt.” Furthermore, it is the same for every fighter who wants to become a world champion. He added, “There’s four major sanctioning bodies starting with WBO, WBA, WBC, IBF, they’re all very valuable they’re they’re worth the same in a boxer’s eyes.” It is only media that creates the narrative of one title being greater than the other. However, for a boxer, “becoming world champion is what matters the most,” no matter the organization, stated the legendary fighter.

While Mikey Garcia is completely fine with Ring Magazine taking the center stage, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman thinks otherwise.

WBC vs The Ring Magazine

This is not the first time that tension between the World Boxing Council and the Saudis have surfaced. The cracks first appeared last year when His Excellency described the current state of boxing as “broken.” 

The statement did not sit right with WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman, who fired back defending his organization. “I’m very upset because they just declared a few days ago that the rankings of the organizations are corrupt. And if you touch my WBC, I’m going to fight back,” stated Sulaiman.

The WBC president declared the Ring belt as irrelevant in front of four major organisations while branding the magazine as biased. “I don’t care about The Ring Magazine because they are a business; they make money, they are biased. And that is not boxing. Boxing is what you see here: the world of boxing united to make boxing better and safer. A paper magazine awarding a belt has no meaning,” he declared.

Following that, WBC refuse to sanction a potential undisputed light heavyweight match between Artur Beterbiev and Dmitry Bivol because of the organization’s position with Russia during the war. While the issue was resolved later on, the tensions were quite visible. Furthermore, the recent incident involving Canelo Alvarez and William Scull is only going to intensify this rivalry.

The new partnership between Saudis and TKO management will further change the scenario of boxing, and there might be no better time to be a boxing fan. What do you think?