The Truth Behind WBC Stripping Shakur: His Lawyer Josh Dubin Tells All

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1:54Build your store, own your audience, and create something that lasts. Start now at Shopify.com slash B-E-N. What up? This is your boy, Ward Jones Jr. I'm hanging out with my man, Andre Ward. We through Hall of Famers will bring y 'all a show called The Hall of Game. A show where we discuss boxing, sports, life, and entertainment from our view. how much better than that can you get? Me and Roy don't always agree. The one thing you will get is a Hall of Fame worth the game. Welcome back to another episode of the Hall of Game. I want to welcome in my co-host, Roy Jones Jr. You all know where he's at, Pensacola, Florida.

2:38And I got a special guest on the show today. This man is more than just my representative. Man, he's a brother of mine. he's a great friend and he to me he is the best lawyer in an attorney in the world and the best trial strategist in the world he runs a wrongful conviction center where he helps people who have been wrongly convicted get out of prison and get their convictions overturned he's also been a lawyer for some of the most prominent figures in the boxing game lennox lewis myself and the list goes on and he currently represents uh Shakur Stevenson four division champion Shakur Stevenson Josh Dubin I want to welcome you to the show brother thank you for coming on the Hall of Game with us yeah it's an honor to be here with you and Roy and you made me blush made me sound a lot better than I a lot better than I actually am but no I I tried but you know you're a man with a lot of accomplishments doing a lot of great things in the world man and um you know I've always just, you know, obviously we have our personal relationship, but the way, you know, you represent Shakur and take care of Shakur, you and James Prince, man, makes me feel happy because oftentimes fighters are not taken care of, they're taken advantage of.

3:59But I want to, I want to jump straight into the main reason we have you on the show today. You know, Shakur Stevenson became a four division world champion January 31st, put on a flawless performance against Teofimo Lopez, and he didn't win the WBC belt for that fourth title or that fourth weight class. He won the WBO belt. But a few days later, February 4th, we start hearing from the WBC again. The WBC strikes again. It's something else that they have a problem with, and they stripped Shakur from his 135-pound title, which he brought into this new weight class. For a few hours or a few days, I should say, he was a champion in both weight classes.

4:42Josh, you know how I feel about sanctioning bodies. I struggle with them. We've had some good relationships with Paco throughout the years, the BO, haven't had any issues with the BA or the IBF per se, but the structure and the amount of money that fighters have to pay and the fluidity in which these sanctioning bodies apply their bylaws and their rules, it bothers me and it troubles me. And the sanctioning body that troubles me the most is Mauricio Suleiman and the WBC. Please unpack why Shakur got stripped and where things currently stand with Team Stevenson and the WBC. Fluidity, huh? I like that.

5:23Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got it. Yeah, for sure. Fluidity. Yeah, I mean, it's an odd one, right? I mean, I'll preface everything because I'm nothing if not careful. These are my opinions. And people can take from them what they want. And I have some strong ones. Look, I've known Mauricio since I was, you know, basically a kid. You know, I was in my late 20s when I had the opportunity to manage the great Lennox Lewis. And, you know, I came to this sport because I wanted to help people. You know, there was I was trying to find the quote, but I remember reading this many, many years ago that I think it was an article in Sports Illustrated that boxing rents souls from the worst circumstances in the poorest neighborhoods.

6:25hoods and then spits them out when it's done with them. And, you know, I, I don't, I, I hate people getting taken advantage of, and I hate bullies. And I hate the fact that because boxing doesn't have a centralized, um, players union, um, league players rep that it, you know, it's like the wild wild west so i know there's a long answer to a short question because i don't think there's a single solution but my biggest problem i know mauricio a long time i think he can be very emotional um i think that he oftentimes shoots before he thinks i think that he throws rocks and hides his hand sometimes so and i the only way that i've been uh the only way that i've been successful in life and business representing fighters is to be as direct as I can.

7:22And, you know, and as transparent as I can. So I went to Mauricio, but I didn't go by myself. I had Shakur on the phone with me. I had my partner, James Prince on the phone with me, and we told them what we planned to do. Now, this was after getting text messages and phone calls from him accusing us of negotiating without telling him. I don't pay attention to any of that stuff. It's all silly. I have my own children to raise and I'm trying to do a great job of. I try to get in as little conflict as possible in life now. That's right. So I just, I told him what we planned to do. I said, if there's a way that you could figure out that the WBC can make some sort of commemorative belt.

8:10I know that there's no shortage of those. There's all sorts of creative ways to invent a belt or a statue or whatever they do. I know Lennox gave me one that they gave to him that looks like something from a Mayan temple. He didn't want to take it home, but whatever. I think that's well-intentioned. I never really heard back from him about that, and we got his permission. I don't know why we needed to get his permission, but we thought it was the honorable thing to do. There wasn't any. Just to jump in real quick. This is as Shakur was going up to 140, permission to go up to 140 and fight for another belt, correct?

8:47Yes. Yes. It was just to let him know what we were doing and that we did not want to vacate the belt at 135. So he was fine with it. And then all of a sudden, a couple of weeks before the fight, there's like this chorus that starts. And it starts with emails and you're not getting back to me. Now, I had a personal issue going on in my life for a period of four days that I had to attend to. And we had already worked out an agreement. And and then there was a demand for a three percent sanction fee. And there was a demand for one hundred and twenty thousand dollars. And I, you know, to me, that's shocking.

9:33There's a fight that you're not going to – you have no role in. You're not going to sanction. And then I – there was a phone call. I don't remember if he called me or I called him. And during that phone call, you know, specific mention was made, you know, of Shakur's relationship with Terrence Crawford. Now, listen, that was very bizarre to me. And I told Mauricio that I don't understand what relevance that has. I don't understand why we're talking about that. But, you know, Terrence and I aren't best buddies. You know, I love Terrence. He's a great guy. He's an amazing champion. But Shakur's choice of friends has nothing to do with this guy.

10:22And, you know, he mentioned, well, you know what's going on with us in the ring. And I said, I'm not interested in any of that. we can talk about something reasonable, but double what we end up paying is not reasonable. And when I say double what we end up paying, what they were asking for is double what we ended up paying the very organization that sanctioned the fight. So I had a real issue with it, But I did plan to address it after the fight. Look, the reason I latched on to the word fluid is that I have the rules up right here. The rules. These rules are, in my experience, bendable, breakable, open to interpretation, rewritten.

11:19That's my experience. But there's a clear rule here. 3.14.1. If a champion wins a title of another organization, the WBC may grant the champion 15 days to elect which title the champion will keep and which the champion will vacate. Now, look.

11:44What is it? To quote the words of my brother, James Prince, I was born tonight, but not last night. I can read. I know what this says. We were not given those 15 days. And maybe the WBC's retort would be, well, it says may. We may do this. We may do that. There's a lot of that may going on in these rules. There's a lot of this in our sole discretion. We will. And so I just look. The whole thing to me, in my opinion, stinks to high heaven. so I think where we stand now with them is you know shame on them this should be this is a crowning moment in this young man's life and to watch him grow up you know from a I know him since he's 18 19 and to watch his his personal evolution his professional evolution and to have it marred by this even a little bit, it should sit wrong with people.

12:46And I think it has. A few things that I want to get clarity on or at least comment on, because fans don't understand, people that are watching this unfold don't understand. So you hear people say, you should pay your bills. In other words, if you're going to fight for a belt or be associated with a certain belt, you should pay for your bills. And I personally don't think you can speak on that if you've never dug in your pocket and paid a sanctioning fee, number one. Number two, you don't hear the other sanctioning bodies, at least publicly. I know there's a lot going on behind the scenes, but the BO, WBO, WBA, IBF, you don't hear them clamoring and positioning themselves for more sanctioning fees or weaponizing their belt or saying things like, well, you got in this position because of the WBC bill.

13:36What do you say when Those same rules that you're referencing, they have verbiage in there. It speaks about being able to dig in a fighter's purse in a situation like Shakur if he's not fighting for the belt because our belt, the BC belt, has helped you get in position. Hey, look, I'm all for paying for something as long as I'm getting what I pay for. And I think that we have a social contract amongst each other as human beings. But there's also a legal contract that's written into any contract, whether it says it or not. It's the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. So shouldn't I expect as a fighter that if I pay your sanctioning fee, you're going to apply your rules as they're written?

14:28or that you're not going to make exceptions when you see fit. And there's all sorts of language around the rules that if the WBC decides in its sole discretion in the best interest of boxing, I don't know that I would trust them to decide what's in the best interest of boxing. I might trust Roy. I might trust you. I might trust I would look to a fighter first. And I just feel, you know, I don't, it's almost like in my mind, I see both sides of certain aspects of it because there is some value to having these belts, right? There is some market value to having these belts, but I don't like wishy-washy rules.

15:16and I don't like the emotional attempts to elbow people out of the way. I just don't like it. I think give him 15 days, just like the rules say, at least. I just think it was in poor taste. I think that did they have the right to strip him under the rules? I guess you could make an argument. I think that why mention 15 days if you're not going to give them? Well, I want to let you get in here. Obviously, you've paid, you know, more sanction fees than you'd like to admit. You fought for many different belts and you've dealt with this kind of thing before. When you see what happened to Terrence Crawford, where Terrence Crawford is, you know, having his swan song, he's having his send off fight and you see Mauricio sort of pocket watching and he's throwing numbers out there.

16:1250 million nobody knows Mauricio doesn't know what he made it's a rumored number so he starts to throw that number out there and then when Terrence Crawford doesn't want to pay the WBC more than he paid the other sanctioning bodies Mauricio starts to weaponize the fighters fund the fighters fund that we never hear about unless something like this happens I'd love more information about the fighters fund and to Mauricio's credit I know that there is money going out I have first hand knowledge that Money has gone out for years for Gerald McClellan and many others, Iran Barkley, many others. And we give Mauricio credit for that because sometimes fighters don't even help fighters.

16:52But what you can't do is weaponize the fighters fund and try to guilt fighters or gaslight fighters into giving you more sanction fees or giving you whatever number you want because you're doing this good deed over here. Roy what does all of this say to you The Crawford situation your personal situations And what just happened to Shakur It's bad to me because it's bad for boxing We don't need this type of thing And like he said it's too bad That we don't have like a Union to be able to go in And resolve these issues because this is Why our sport does need A union because there are both Sides to every argument and I Do understand that My biggest issue is I can understand some of the issues with trying to know what he was trying to say about the issue with Crawford, but you can't expect Crawford to give you more than he gave any other sanctioning body.

17:46All those belts were the reasons he was where he was. So you can't say he should pay you more because of what you're doing. I understand, but you shouldn't put that on him. Now you can ask him, now you say, hey, if you would, could you give us X amount because we're also helping this? Or could you just give something directly to help this? You could do that maybe, but you can't just put on him Oh, you got to pay us more than you got to pay anybody else. That's not fair, number one. Number two, I don't know all the bylaws. I don't read the bylaws like that. But I can promise you that if I was not defending my belt for a certain organization, I'm not paying the organization because I don't need you.

18:19You're not there for the sanctioning body. You're not there for the sanctioning body. So I don't need no matter which bill it was. So if I wasn't fighting for a bill, I'm not paying no sanctioning fee for that bill. I shouldn't have to. Now, but I do understand. I do understand the sanctioning fees, but if I ain't fighting for the belt, I don't need y 'all I really don't even need the belt, but no I do understand the part about the belt puts us in better positions sometimes too, but still, there's sanctioning fees and the sanctioning fees both have purposes if you're not coming, if that organization does not have to be there, I don't feel like I should have to pay a sanctioning fee, so that's where I stand.

18:53I'd like to hire Roy as my lawyer, because he articulated it better and quicker than I could have. I mean, I just wanted to be able to, you know, Roy, I just wanted to be able to have that conversation with him. And there was no room for the conversation, especially when you start off prior to the fight, weaponizing his friendship with Terrence. I could tell you that, you know, Shakur is a private guy. He's not sharing his purse with Terrence. He's not even talking to Terrence about Terrence's great stand with the WBC. They have a special friendship and they, you know, he has been an incredible, Terrence has been an incredible mentor to Shakur.

19:39But Shakur is not like someone's little bro. This is a man that is a father and a husband and has soaked up so much knowledge. Andre has been instrumental in his life and teaching him. James has been like a father figure to him. I'll give myself like the big brother role. And he he doesn't need to be told anything. And this wasn't me doing something because I felt it was right or wrong. He I work for him. And Shakur tells me what I should be doing. And I my job is to take the information and bring it back to him. And then we talk about it together. I give him advice. He takes it or leaves it. But he makes a lot of big boy decisions on his own.

20:21And just to be able to have the conversation would have been nice. But I think that one thing I've learned that if you if you react or act emotionally, personally and business is never a good thing. You've been working in the garage with your dad every week, Monday to Sunday, trying to get the old school up and running. Today, after all the hard work, y 'all finally finished it. So you have that feeling of accomplishment. You did it. Then your dad throws you the keys and says those three magic words. All yours, son. Yep, that same car belonged to your grandpa and that your dad helped him fix. It's yours.

20:59Three generations right there, keeping the tradition alive. But if you ask dad to really keep the tradition going, you need to get insurance. And you already know you need to get State Farm because your agent, well, he gets tradition too. His dad was an agent. His grandpa too. So he gets you. generation to generation. Remember to choose the agents that your family counted on. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. So I just wish Mauricio would have acted different. With regard to the fighters fund, it can be no doubt that that's a great thing. But can we see in accounting? Exactly. We want to see it.

21:42I mean, in any other pension fund, I know you can see how much the fund has under management, what's your stake in it? What's Roy's stake in it? You paid lots of money in sanctioning fees. You both had long careers. You were both world champions paying a percentage of the purses you made which by the pure laws of capitalism meant you probably paid in more sanctioning fees than most. I don't know. I'd like to see an accounting. I would too. You know, I didn't I didn't hear about the fighters fund until something was said about the WBC. That wasn't untrue, but it was just the fact that it was said a couple of years ago on on our platform.

22:31Excuse me. I was doing another interview. And Mauricio is in my, you know, my WhatsApp going crazy, you know, telling me, how can you say this? Look at what I've done. And it's like, Mauricio, that's fine. But why have I never heard of this? There's 90 98 percent of fighters in the boxing community do not know about this fighters fund. Don't force us to pay into it. Give us the opportunity to understand it and to see the transparency with the books. But I'm also say this. It's a it is offensive and is very unsettling to for someone. And in this case, the sanctioned body to demand a number, right, to demand a number from you when you literally bleed to make money and you put your your you know, your life at risk every time.

23:12out and we know what we're signing up for so we're not asking for any you know sympathy with that but just understand that and be sensitive about that when you start to demand money especially publicly that part can be very unsettling but but the part that that continues to get me josh and we've talked about this for years the fact that there's not just just common there's that the mauricio's of the world and and even a lot of the suits in the world right like in the boxing community they just can't fathom a fighter making a good business decision on their own. It has to be because one fighter is tied to Zufa.

23:47It has to be because Shakur is tied to Terrence Crawford. Shakur Stevenson looked at that number, had his business hat on, not the fighter's hat, but the business hat and said, this is not acceptable. I don't want to do this. And I'm paraphrasing, but he put a public tweet out where, you know, he talked about giving the money to his daughter over giving it to the WBC. And that's what people who speak out about what fighters should be paying the sanctioned bodies don't understand. There is medical expenses, mortgages, tuitions that we've given the WBC. We have no, all sanctioned bodies. We don't know where the money's gone.

24:25And we were just told from day one, it's 3%. Why wasn't, why wasn't it 1 %? Why wasn't it 5 %? And we're just told to do this, continue doing it. If you ever have anything to say against it, that's a problem. And that's a problem for me. I want Roy to weigh in on that one. Talk about it, Roy. Well, to his credit, I've been friends with him and his father for a long time. And I must admit that he does do a lot of things outside that people don't see about, that he's called me several times and asked me to go do. He does do things. Suleman. He does do a lot of things that he don't say anything to people about things that people never even hear about because that's how much he's into boxing.

25:07So I got to give him credit that I do know for a fact that he is that person that goes the extra mile to try to help anything to do with boxing. But like you said, you can't make a person do something that they are obligated to do with their own money. I think a lot of us are getting caught up into the fact that Turk is paying so much money and we're counting the money that we think Turk is paying. We don't know for a fact what it is, so we can't count that. And when it's not even your title on the line, it makes you look a little different. Now, to bring in and mention Terrence Crawford's name at the same time, that's kind of unprofessional, too, because we're not talking about Terrence Crawford.

25:45Just because he's in the locker room, he's not fighting. So we're not talking about him. Just because they're friends has nothing to do with. It's like, look at the Epstein files now. There are a lot of people coming out, people that had involvement, yeah, they got problems. Some people had no involvement, they don't have problems. I mean, it's just different things. You understand me? So if it's not you personally being involved with it, then it's not your issue. Shakur and Bud, that's two separate entities, two separate situations. They should never have been combined or even mentioned in a combined situation.

26:18Yeah, it was shocking. I got to tell you, it was shocking because I then, you know, there was a bunch of people attached to an email with this, this, you know, follow up. And I said, you know, the problem that my fighter is having with this is that you mentioned his friend's name and he he doesn't understand that. And then there was, of course, an emotional reaction to that. That was a private conversation. And I'm like, OK, well, if it's a private, why are all these other people that have nothing to do with Shakur's career? God bless Eddie Hearn and his company, but they're they're not his promoter.

26:58They were promoting a fight coming up. But look, I don't I don't know what the solution is. I do know one thing. I know a couple of things. One thing I know is that the WBO had a negotiation with us and it was professional. and they did not say, here is what we charge and you must pay it. It was, this is what we typically charge. You have been a multi-division champion with our organization. And we want to recognize the fact that

27:33there's a lot of tension out there about the amount of sanctioning fees and they compromised. Then I got to give it to Gustavo. He's very professional about it. And his focus was on having Shakur to Puerto Rico to visit his motherland. Most people don't know Shakur's half Puerto Rican and to celebrate it. So, look, I think Mauricio has done wonderful things for boxing. I agree with Roy. I mean, I'll never forget. I think I told you the story before, Dre. I was in Mexico City when Kermit Cintron fought Canelo. and it was in a bull ring. It was like a several hundred year old bull ring. And they, after the first round, Mauricio walked over.

28:23I don't even think he knew that I drank, let alone if I did what my drink was. But he handed me a tall glass of scotch and he said, you're going to need this tonight and winked at me. I thought that was some of the funny because he was right. Canelo looked like he wanted to punch a hole through Kermit. And I know he's done amazing things for Lennox and for Mike, you know, who is a dear, you know, very dear to me still, Mike Tyson. And I know that he has done – I just – I wish – I almost wish for him that he would act more professional about it and not get so emotional and, you know, figure a way through.

29:01But let me say this. unless and until Roy Jones, Andre Ward, and Terrence and some of the other, I'm going to call you unks some of the other unks, sorry Dre, you're no longer nephew but you all get together, but you all have to get together as fighters and say we are going to unionize we have to get a collective bargaining agreement together And you really have to be one for one and one for all, because unless and until you are, there will be someone taking advantage of the fighter. There just will be. You know, the reason why there is a league minimum in the NBA and MLB and the NFL is because there is a players union and there's a union rep.