Oscar De La Hoya weighs in after Terence Crawford withdraws from WBC: ‘I thought you had integrity’
Oscar De La Hoya’s “Clap Back Thursday” is normally one of boxing’s most tongue-in-cheek online segments, but the former pound-for-pound star wasn’t in the mood for humor in his latest edition.
The 52-year-old showed frustration as he addressed the increasingly strained relationship between the WBC and Terence Crawford – a dispute that now urgently needs repair after Crawford was stripped of his super middleweight title over what WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman said was an unpaid sanctioning fee.
Crawford fired back with an unfiltered response on Instagram, prompting De La Hoya to publicly challenge the undisputed three-weight champion’s position and throw his support behind the sanctioning body. What followed was a fiery, expletive-laden monologue that immediately set the tone.
“I’m not going to make you laugh because today I’m pretty pissed.
“Terence Crawford, he told the WBC to go fuck themselves yesterday and refuses to pay them a sanction fee for his $50 million fight against Canelo. Has he forgotten where he came from or how he got there? How do you think you got to this level? Through the ranking system? You’re able to make that kind of money.
“You’ve been paying sanction fees for a long time. There’s nothing new here. There’s nothing revolutionary.”
Now a top promoter, De La Hoya went further, accusing Crawford of acting as a spokesperson for TKO – who, alongside Sela, recently formed Zuffa Boxing, the new promotional team led by Dana White and Turki Alalshikh, owner of The Ring magazine.
“It sounds like you’re reading a script or something. It sounds like the monopoly money has really gone to your head. That’s not how champions behave. There’s an agenda with TKO. They want to create one belt, one entity to control the entire sport, but it’s sad that they made you the spokesperson? You of all people? I thought you had integrity. I thought you had respect for boxing and the sport.”
De La Hoya then drew a line in the sand, explaining where some sanction costs are spent — including housing veterans and paying hospital bills — before turning his attention back to Crawford.
“So just because you were successful, Crawford, and you made $50 million, you don’t ever want to pay that fee again? That’s not true. There’s a program here by the TKO Group, and I’m going to do everything in my power to do everything I can to protect boxing because it’s a sport that has given me everything.”
Zuffa Boxing will host 12 boxing events in 2026 starting in January.
