Last May Cuban Yunier Dorticos won the WBA Interim Cruiserweight Championship in a really great fight by stopping Kalenga in the tenth round, moving to 22-0 (21 KOs) in the process. This was a stupid belt to exist because Beibut Shumenov was scheduled to fight for the WBA World Cruiserweight Championship just weeks later. He won, stopping an overmatched Junior Wright in the tenth, improving himself to 17-2 (11 KOs).
Shumenov’s belt was also stupid because above him the WBA recognizes Dennis Lebedev as their “Super World Cruiserweight Champion,” which is just super if you ask me. Want this to be even dumber? Great! Lebedev lost his most recent fight, a split decision to Murat Gassiev in December, but that title wasn’t on the line so he is still the Super Champ because, you know, boxing.
The WBA has this absurdity in many divisions to drive sanctioning fees, but it also has been somewhat actively cleaning it up thankfully. What we should also be thankful for is that past all the trinket nonsense, this really is a great matchup. I like it’s potential for fireworks quite a bit. Supposedly the winner faces Lebedev too to finish clearing this all up, but who knows? Maybe by then the WBC will have created and named a WBA Super Duper Cruiserweight Championship to further muddle the picture.
The fight will be April 29th in Vegas. TV is not determined yet, but it better land somewhere.
