Spence: We Give 3 Percent To These [Sanctioning] Organizations; What Are They Doing With It?

NEW YORK – Terence Crawford and Errol Spence Jr. obviously believe becoming boxing’s first fully unified welterweight champion of the four-belt era is important enough to pay significant portions of their purses to the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO next month.

Unless they negotiate lower percentages with one or more of those sanctioning bodies, Crawford and Spence will pay three percent apiece, a total of 12 percent each, to those four organizations for the right to become undisputed champion in the 147-pound division. Spence, who owns the IBF, WBA and WBC belts, still questioned what those sanctioning bodies do with fees from higher-profile fights following the second of their back-to-back press conferences Wednesday at Palladium Times Square.

“We give three percent to these organizations,” Spence said. “I mean, we gotta know where this money going to. I mean, a lotta times they gettin’ – man, you got Canelo and Joshua and all these guys, you know, making $50 million dollars [per fight] and these belts gettin’ three percent of that. Where’s it going to? How is it helping the fighters out? What are they doing with it?”

The IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO each have charitable organizations that aid various causes, including retired boxers in need of financial assistance, but it isn’t clear how much of the money those governing bodies collect from fighters’ purses are applied to charity. The operating costs of the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO are mostly covered by sanctioning fees and proceeds from annual conventions attended by boxers, managers, officials and promoters.

Spence, 33, will defend three welterweight titles for the first time when he encounters Crawford in their Showtime Pay-Per-View main event July 29 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The DeSoto, Texas native hasn’t fought since he won the WBA belt from Cuba’s Yordenis Ugas, whom Spence stopped in the 10th round of their April 2022 bout at the Dallas Cowboys’ AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

Spence (28-0, 22 KOs) has paid at least one sanctioning fee for each of his last seven fights, which dates back to his 11th-round knockout of Kell Brook in May 2017 at Bramall Lane, a soccer stadium in Brook’s hometown of Sheffield England. Spence, who was Brook’s mandatory challenger, won the IBF belt from Brook.

Crawford, 35, became the sport’s first fully unified 140-pound champion of the four-belt era when he knocked out Namibia’s Julius Indongo in the third round of their August 2017 fight at Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska.

The three-division champion paid a total of 12 percent of his purse to the IBF, WBA, WBC and WBO for the Indongo bout. Crawford gave up those four titles before his following fight because he moved up to the welterweight division.

Crawford (39-0, 30 KOs) has owned the WBO welterweight crown since he beat Australia’s Jeff Horn by ninth-round technical knockout in June 2018 at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas. The Omaha, Nebraska native has defended that title six times over the past five years.

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.