From interim to real champion: super middleweight Christian Mbilli receives an upgrade from the World Boxing Council (WBC).
Christian Mbilli’s patience and hard work have finally paid off. The World Boxing Council (WBC) officially named him WBC super middleweight world champion in Mexico on Tuesday, no longer just interim world champion.
Mega stage and “fight of the year”
This decision follows several busy months for Team Mbilli, both inside and outside the ring. On June 29, Christian Mbilli (29-0-1, 24 knockouts) won the WBC interim world title at the “Centre Vidéotron” in Quebec City when he stopped Maciej Sulecki in the first round. On September 13, the fighter from Montreal successfully defended his interim title against Lester Martinez on the undercard of the Canelo-Crawford showdown, which was watched by almost 40 million viewers on Netflix. The fight between Mbilli and Martinez was named “Fight of the Night” by the WBC and recently “Fight of the Year”.
Sheeraz refused to fight
That evening, WBC world champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez lost his title to Terence Crawford. The US-American then decided to relinquish the belt and finally announced his retirement in the following weeks. The WBC then ordered a fight between Mbilli and the top-ranked challenger, Hamzah Sheeraz. But Sheeraz refused to take on the Canadian super middleweight. As a result, the Mexico-based federation decided to simply remove the “interim” label from Mbilli’s title – and make him the sole WBC world champion in the 168-pound division.
“After so many challenges and sacrifices, we are very happy about this crowning success for Christian and the team,” explained Camille Estephan, President of Mbilli’s Eye of the Tiger promotion. And promised: “This is just the beginning – the best is yet to come.”
Text: Press release / Eye of the Tiger