Exciting knockout artist crowned in wake of Crawford’s retirement.
Terence Crawford beat Canelo Alvarez in September and won himself the entire collection of belts in the super-middleweight division. This made Crawford the undisputed champion, and not for the first–or even the second, for that matter–time.
As undisputed champion, your obligations are numerous. For every belt, there is a mandatory challenger, and you must defend against each of them lest you find yourself one title less.
Naturally, this is a challenging task to fulfil, and it’s why some fighters prefer to vacate certain titles in order to make other fights. Canelo himself did this when he vacated his IBF title to fight Edgar Berlanga instead of defend it against William Scull (though he would later go on to fight Scull anyway).
In Crawford’s case, though, he was stripped of the WBC title following a dispute over sanctioning fees, and the rest of his titles were vacated following the announcement of his retirement.
This opened up a lot of opportunities for contenders at the weight, and now the latest to benefit from the fracturing of Crawford’s crown is a heavy-handed French-Cameroonian.
Christian Mbilli’s last fight was on the undercard of Crawford’s win over Canelo. And while Mbilli’s fight was nowhere near as big, it was hailed by many as the best fight of the entire card.
This was Mbilli’s fight with Lester Martínez, an absolute ripsnorter of a battle filled with nothing but heavy leather flung either way. In this fight, Mbilli was defending his WBC interim title, which has now been upgraded to the full-on championship.
The WBC had previously ordered Mbilli to fight Hamzah Sheeraz for the vacant title, but decided to cancel their ruling once it became clear that Sheeraz wanted to take the WBO route.
As for Christian Mbilli (29-0-1, 24 KOs), it’s expected that his first defence as champion will be in a rematch of his all-out war with Lester Martínez (19-0-1, 16 KOs), who is the highest-ranked available contender.
And if it’s any bit as exciting as their first fight, fans are in for a mouthwatering spectacle.
Terence Crawford, meanwhile, is being rumoured to be in talks to return to the sport.
If that does happen, then boxing fans worldwide will be more than pleased.
‼️ Christian Mbilli has been elevated to WBC super middleweight world champion, the WBC has confirmed.
Terence Crawford was stripped of the title prior to his retirement, and Mbilli has now been upgraded from ‘interim’ status. pic.twitter.com/AttKImdx4M
— Ring Magazine (@ringmagazine) January 27, 2026
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