January 29, 2021 will go down in boxing history as "WBA Black Friday," a day of unparalleled corruption by the sanctioning organization, even by boxing's own extremely low standards. Here is what happened, all in one day: First, Manuel Charr was stripped of the regular heavyweight title to accomodate promoter Don King by allowing two of King's boxers to fight for Charr's vacated title. The WBA further ruled that King no longer had to honor the $1.5 million obligation he had to Charr. Then, Bermane Stiverne, a boxer promoted by King, was inserted at #11 in the WBA rankings and immediately sanctioned to fight Trevor Bryan, another King boxer, for Charr's former title. The WBA approved Stiverne to fight for the tite even though he had not won a professional fight since 2015. Bryan wound up stopping Stiverne in round eleven to claim the title. A lawsuit is expected shortly from Charr.

 

Next, the WBA took a very ordinary heavyweight named Bogdan Dinu and rated him #3, which virtually guarantees him a title fight in the next year, now that #1 Bryan is the regular champion and #2 Oleksandyr Usyk will likely fight for the WBO title. Dinu is promoted by Cohen, who like King, has a suspiciously cozy relationship with the the WBA. There is no objective basis to rank Dinu at #3. He does not merit a spot in Boxingtalk's top 50 heavyweights; he is ranked #62 in the IBO's computerized ratings; and #92 in Boxrec's computerized ratings.

 

Moving on from the heavyweights, the WBA also stripped boxing legend Manny Pacquiao of the WBA welterweight super championship. The WBA claimed inactivity was the reason for stripping Pacquiao, but Pacquiao had fought more recently (2019) than Bryan, who held the interim title despite inactivity datingback to 2018. The WBA also did not enforce its activity rule in an evenhanded manner as Dmitry Bivol, Ryota Murata, Carlos Canizalez, Hiroto Kyoguchi and Can Xu are WBA champions who have not fought since 2019 but were allowed to retain their titles by the WBA. Replacing Pacquiao as super champion is Yordenis Ugas, who previously held the regular title. Pacquiao is now considered the WBA champion in recess.

 

Finally, Beibut Shumenov was stripped of the cruiserweight regular title for inactivity, although he has been inactive for only a month longer than Bryan. For some reason, Charr and Pacquiao were allowed to keep the title of champion in recess, while Shumenov was kicked to the curb completely, replaced by former interim titlist Ryad Merhy.