World Boxing Council - Championships

Championships

The WBC's green championship belt portrays the flags of all of the 161 countries of the organization;. All WBC world title belts look identical regardless of weight class; however, there are minor variations on the design for secondary and regionally-themed titles within the same weight class.

The WBC has nine regional governing bodies affiliated with it, such as the North American Boxing Federation (NABF), the Oriental and Pacific Boxing Federation (OPBF), the European Boxing Union (EBU) and the African Boxing Council (ABC).

Although rivals, the WBC's relationship with other sanctioning bodies has improved over time and there have even been talks of unification with the WBA. Unification bouts between WBC and other organizations' champions are becoming more common in recent years. Throughout its history, the WBC has allowed some of its organization's champions to fight unification fights with champions of other organizations, although there were times it stepped in to prevent such fights. For many years, it also prevented its champions from holding the WBO belt. When a WBO-recognized champion wished to fight for a WBC championship, he had to abandon his WBO title first, without any special considerations. This, however, is no longer the case.

In 1983, the WBC took the unprecedented step of reducing the distance of its world championship bouts, from 15 rounds to 12—a move other organizations soon followed (for boxers' safety).

Among those to have been recognized by the WBC as world champions were the Undefeated Rocky Marciano (49-0), Roy Jones, Jr., Wilfred Benítez, Wilfredo Gómez, Julio César Chávez, Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, Sugar Ray Leonard, Mike Tyson, Salvador Sánchez, Héctor Camacho, Marvin Hagler, Carlos Monzón, Rodrigo Valdez, Roberto Durán, Juan Laporte, Félix Trinidad, Edwin Rosario, Bernard Hopkins, Alexis Argüello, Nigel Benn, Lennox Lewis, Vitali Klitschko, Erik Morales, Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr.

The WBC bolstered the legitimacy of women's boxing by recognizing fighters such as Christy Martin and Lucia Rijker as contenders for World Female titles in 16 weight divisions. The first WBC World Female Champion (on May 30, 2005) was super-bantamweight Mexican, Jackie Nava. With her former-champion father at ringside, Laila Ali won the super-middleweight title on June 11, 2005.

In September 2009, the WBC created its new "Diamond Championship" belt. This belt was created as an honorary championship exclusively to award the winner of a historic fight between two high-profile boxers. The inaugural Diamond Belt was awarded on November 14, 2009 to Manny Pacquiao who won his seventh world title (in seven different divisions) via 12th round technical knockout over Miguel Ángel Cotto at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

The WBC has also created a "Silver" world title recently, with Justin Savi to be the first one to win it on April 16, 2010, against Cyril Thomas in France. The Silver title was created as a replacement to the interim title. But unlike its predecessor, a boxer holding the Silver title cannot inherit the full title vacated by the champion.

Former WBC presidents include Luis Spota and Ramon G. Velázquez of Mexico, Onslow Fane of Great Britain and Justiniano N. Montano, Jr. of the Philippines. The organization's current president is José Sulaimán.