Mauricio Sulaiman Responds To Bivol’s Criticism Of The WBC

In today’s boxing headlines, WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman has hit out at Dmitry Bivol after the latter expressed frustration towards the stance of the organization when it came to Russian fighters fighting for their belt.

As of now, the WBC has prevented the boxer from fighting for its belt due to the Russian war in Ukraine. That has had the impact of preventing Bivol from facing Artur Beterbiev for all the belts.

That has drawn a lot of talking points, with many feeling that Bivol was being unfairly punished for something that was out of his control.

And given that the undisputed bout at 175 is one the biggest fights in boxing, Bivol was understandably not happy. After all, Beterbiev is also from a Russian background. In response, this is what he had to say.

Bivol On The WBC

"IT’S NOT FAIR‼️”

😡😤 @bivol_d RAGES at WBC, Canelo Mixing Politics With Sport.

Watch the full interview HERE ➡️ https://t.co/cy5nByL548#Bivol #BoxingWorld #BoxingHype #boxing #boxingnews #canelo pic.twitter.com/9pyUdqC44t

— Radio Rahim🎤 (@RadioRahimTV) June 12, 2023

“It looks funny because [Canadian citizen] Beterbiev is Russian too. I was born in Kyrgyzstan; I spent almost half of my life there. If I was born there, I could go anytime and get my passport. What’s the problem? I think there’s some other reason [they’re saying that]. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not the main problem keeping us from making the fight.

“Politics and sports are two different things. I hope one day it will be really clean – sports will be separated from politics. I really hope. Because all my life I’ve spent it boxing – I spent all my life in the boxing gym, and I just want to fight. I want to show people that you can achieve something if you work hard. Even if you come from a small city, you could be someone,” Bivol said

Those comments had gotten the attention of the WBC President, who has spoken about going through an appeal process, which would require Bivol to reach out to the WBC.

As of now, there is nothing to indicate that the WBA light heavyweight champion has done this. In addition, there is also nothing to suggest that the appeal would be successful.

Regardless of what the case may be, Sulaiman did make his position clear. His following comments confirmed as much.

WBC On Bivol

“We have explained consistently several times that Bivol has to contact the WBC and put his case forward, explaining why the WBC should not consider him Russian. Because we do not allow any boxing in Russia or Belarus, we don’t rank any boxers from Russia or Belarus and we don’t [give] any support [to] any activity of a WBC fight involving those two countries.

“He has never contacted the WBC for months. It’s very simple. If he believes he’s being mistreated and that we should have a different status [he should have reached out to us]—I’ve said it many times.  He’s [Beterbiev] been 15 years in Canada. He has a passport, boxing license from Canada. His kids were born in Canada. It’s a very different scenario,” WBC President Sulaiman