Lately, sanctioning fees from boxing’s four major governing bodies have drawn significant backlash. But Ryan Garcia has offered a different perspective, explaining how such fees support retired broke fighters. Yet, ‘King Ry’ didn’t always have the best relationship with one of them. The WBC severed ties with Garcia in 2024 after a series of controversial remarks.

Since then, however, the Victorville native has mended that relationship and even captured the WBC welterweight title earlier this year with a victory over Mario Barrios. So when Kick livestreamer Neon asked about the role of the WBC, WBA, WBO, and IBF in boxing, Ryan Garcia was quick to respond with his version of the answer.

“It’s just for retired fighters,” Garcia told Neon during a livestream when asked why boxers are forced to pay the sanctioning bodies. “So it’s like to help out fighters… It’s for like retired fighters.

But even Ryan Garcia believed there’s something fishy going on with the sanctioning bodies regarding how they handle that money. 

“Well, there’s probably some f**king, yeah…,” Ryan Garcia added during the livestream when Neon revealed he thought the sanctioning bodies just pocket the money.

However, there’s more to what the WBC, WBA, WBO, and IBF do. First of all, the sanctioning fees charged to fighters are 3 percent of each fighter’s purse. These percentages can be negotiable in some cases, where the purse is extremely large. As for what else they do with it, the sanctioning bodies use it to cover the cost of running the organizations. 

This includes staff salaries, offices, ranking committees, conventions, rule enforcement, and administrative overhead. In some cases, like the WBC, they also use it, like Ryan Garcia said, to help retired or injured fighters, medical/research initiatives, elder care for former boxers in financial distress, and various charitable efforts across dozens of countries.

“Everything goes back to boxing,” WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman told BoxingScene in 2022. “… Anyone [who] wants to see what we do with the money… we will send them all the proof. WBC is the one that brought [fights from] 15 [rounds] to 12 rounds, [implemented] day-before weigh-in, the four ropes in the ring, the changes to the gloves, [and] the anti-doping.

“We spend a lot of money on anti-doping in the Clean Boxing Program,” he added. “We have a weight management program, we have countless [number] of social responsibility programs, and that’s where the money goes. It is done on behalf of every single fighter who [has] ever fought for the WBC. Whenever there is money [involved], an organization is going to be bad. But we just live with it. I can only speak for the WBC.”

Despite Sulaiman’s claim, they have come under fire in recent times when boxers decided they had had enough.

Terence Crawford and Shakur Stevenson lash out at the WBC

After Terence Crawford defeated Canelo Alvarez in September last year, reports revealed that the WBC is stripping him for failing to pay sanctioning fees. Crawford took to social media to blast the organization, claiming every other sanction body was satisfied with the amount he paid them, but WBC wanted “$300,000 plus another $100K-something.” 

Even though the WBC had agreed to reduce its sanctioning fees because of the large purse involved in the Crawford-Canelo fight, ‘Bud’ felt the sanctioning body did next to nothing and refused to pay the money. He was quickly stripped of the belt, and soon afterward, the three-division undisputed champion retired from the sport. 

Crawford’s close friend and training partner, Shakur Stevenson, had a similar experience. He was moving up to the super lightweight division to face Teofimo Lopez for the WBO strap. However, he has revealed that the WBC demanded $120,000 from him for the fight, even though their lightweight WBC belt wasn’t on the line. 

Stevenson claimed that when he refused to pay the amount, the WBC stripped him of the belt. But WBC explained a different reason behind their decision to strip the champion. 

“In light of Champion Stevenson now being the reigning WBO Super Lightweight World Champion and consistent with the WBC Rules & Regulations, the WBC has declared vacant its Lightweight World title,” the statement read. 

What’s more, IBF recently backed out at the last minute to let Jai Opetaia compete for their cruiserweight belt. Why? Allegedly, because they didn’t like how the belt was portrayed during Zuffa Boxing’s press conference for Opetaia’s fight against Brandon Glanton. Some reports have claimed Dana White, the man leading the promotion, and Opetia may seek legal action. 

In other areas of their work as well, like enforcing mandatory fights, the WBC has failed. David Benavidez famously waited over a year to fight Canelo Alvarez, but the sanctioning body refused to strip Canelo. Some might say that this is the only instance of WBC showing favoritism, but it doesn’t take more than one crime to land in jail. 

Moral of the story? The sanctioning bodies may exist on paper to help boxers, and in the majority of cases, they do. However, it’s also true that they are fraught with corruption. But what do you think?