Billy Joe Saunders remains the same classy operator he has always been.
- Good Guy WBC – To start on a positive note, the WBC has done the right thing in regards to the potential full unification heavyweight clash between British megastar Anthony Joshua and their titleholder Deontay Wilder. They’ve elected to step out of the way entirely. The sanctioning body has ruled that it will not enforce mandatory challenger Dominic Breazeale’s title shot in the case that Wilder gets his major fight with Joshua until afterward. Forcing Wilder to fight Breazeale first would derail any of the slim hope left remaining for an April battle for the heavyweight championship. In the likely event that Joshua-Wilder does not happen, however, the WBC will mandate the defense for the Alabama native. This is good news for sure. All the sanctioning bodies have their faults and the makers of the famed green belts are no exception, but the WBC is generally open to facilitating unification. If only the other three consistently were too. Also, it should be noted that Dillian Whyte is contesting Dominic Breazeale’s status as number one contender through the WBC’s appeals process. That is very unlikely to go anywhere though.
- Boxing on NBC – Add another potential TV rights deal to the mix to the rapidly growing health of the sport. The latest speculation is that Kathy Duva and Main Events are set to revisit an old deal they had with NBC. ESPN’s Dan Rafael broke the news that NBC is looking to buy seven cards a year from the formerly huge and now midsized promoter. They will mostly air on NBC Sports Network, but the debut card could reportedly end up on main NBC itself and air before the year ends at the tail end of December. Main Events previously had cards on NBC’s channels from 2012 to 2014, but that deal ended when PBC moved in for roughly the following two years. Boxing has been away from the NBC family of networks since 2016. This isn’t a huge deal like the ones that have come from DAZN, Showtime, FOX, and ESPN, but it will add yet another network spending money on the sport. If you’re unfamiliar with Main Events, Duva and company are the promoters of Sergey Kovalev, Curtis Stevens, Sullivan Barrera, Tomasz Adamek, and a variety of midlevel contenders and promising prospects.
- Saunders Out – As expected following his failed VADA drug test, Billy Joe Saunders has been denied his license to fight in Massachusetts and is off his October 20th title defense against Demetrius Andrade. In fact, Saunders is very unlikely to have a middleweight title to defend at all. The WBO will respect his right to an appeals process, but they are expected to strip him once he inevitably loses. Andrade will remain on the show and meet Walter Kautondokwa, a relatively unknown out of Namibia with power on his record at least. For now the Andrade-Kautondokwa fight is for an interim version of the WBO belt. The winner will likely be elevated to full titleholder if/when Saunders loses his appeal and is stripped. Of course, Billy Joe Saunders has handled this all with nothing but the expected class we’ve come to know from him. He told the Massacusetts commission to “suck [his] prick” on speakerphone when they ruled their verdict.
- Fury Tested – Finally, a bit of controversy was quickly put to bed this week, hopefully. It came out rather abruptly that controversial lineal heavyweight champion Tyson Fury had not enrolled in the WBC’s Clean Boxing Program for his upcoming challenge at Deontay Wilder’s belt on December 1st. No one is eligible to fight for a WBC belt without taking part in the VADA ran testing program. The sanctioning body reportedly informed Fury of this and he then signed up. Now this is all behind us, again, hopefully. The problem here of course is that Fury has twice failed VADA tests before for cocaine. Those failures are what initially canceled his major rematch with Wladimir Klitschko. He’s also failed drug tests through the UK Anti-Doping Agency as well. History clearly suggests that no one’s confidence should be all that high in Tyson’s ability to get through these tests without ruining the rapidly approaching Showtime PPV. Hopefully he’ll stay clean though. Hopefully.
