Hamzah Sheeraz is no longer a world champion. The unbeaten Londoner has voluntarily relinquished his WBO super-middleweight title rather than accept a mandatory defence against Janibek Alimkhanuly, a fight he has spent weeks publicly branding a fix. The WBO’s own World Championship Committee is expected to rule on the vacant title’s future today, bringing a messy few weeks of politics to a head.
A purse bid he wasn’t prepared to accept
The dispute traces back to a purse bid process that Queensberry Promotions won last week with an offer of $1,001,809, comfortably the lowest of the bids submitted. Under the standard 75/25 split, Sheeraz stood to earn $751,356.75 for the defence, with Alimkhanuly taking $250,452.25. For a fighter who has banked seven figure purses fighting under the Riyadh Season and Ring Magazine banners over the past year, that number simply wasn’t close enough. Rather than proceed, Sheeraz walked away from the belt entirely.
It caps a short but eventful reign. Sheeraz won the vacant title with a second round knockout of Alem Begic in Egypt in May, then made a single defence in July, a majority decision over Simon Zachenhuber in Saudi Arabia, before undergoing surgery on his right hand.
The corruption row with the WBO
Money was only part of the story. Sheeraz has been openly hostile towards the WBO ever since Alimkhanuly, a former unified middleweight champion, was installed as his mandatory challenger despite having failed a drugs test for meldonium and served a suspension the organisation subsequently cut short. “I think what the WBO have done here is disgraceful to the sport of boxing,” Sheeraz said last month. “What they’re essentially doing is rewarding someone who’s been popped. I suppose it comes down to ulterior motives and corruption. I feel like it’s all based on personal relationships.”
WBO president Gustavo Olivieri hit back publicly, insisting he “unequivocally” disagreed with any suggestion of corruption. Olivieri argued the cases weren’t comparable to episodes like Ryan Garcia’s positive test against Devin Haney, since Alimkhanuly never actually fought while the doping matter was live, and pointed to mitigating medical evidence and penalties he said exceeded those handed down by Kazakhstan’s own regulators. He also noted the WBO has a history of giving recently crowned champions moving up in weight, Keyshawn Davis among them, similar leeway. Following the vacation, Olivieri struck a more conciliatory tone, saying the organisation’s “doors will always remain open” to Sheeraz should he wish to challenge for the title again in future.
What happens to the belt now
With the title officially vacant, the WBO’s World Championship Committee is due to rule today on how the division proceeds. The expectation is that Alimkhanuly will be ordered into a fight with Diego Pacheco, the next highest rated contender in the WBO’s super-middleweight rankings, though there’s a scheduling wrinkle: Pacheco already has a fight booked for 14 November on TNT, which could complicate any immediate move to install him against Alimkhanuly for the vacant strap.
Where this leaves Sheeraz
The 26 year old still has one fight left on his Queensberry contract, and his immediate future is up in the air. Asked about a possible move to Dana White’s Zuffa Boxing once he becomes a free agent, Sheeraz didn’t rule it out. “That’s definitely an avenue I’ll explore,” he said, while acknowledging his existing obligations make an immediate switch complicated.
A domestic superfight against Chris Eubank Jr has long simmered in the background of Sheeraz’s career, and losing the WBO belt does nothing to kill that possibility, if anything it removes a mandatory obligation that was always going to get in the way of it being made. For now, though, Sheeraz returns to the super-middleweight picture without a title for the first time since May, watching from the outside as the WBO decides who fights for the belt he just gave up.
