Denzel Bentley was the WBO middleweight champion for just 102 days and has now explained why he thinks his reign came to an end last Friday when the WBO officially stripped him of the title.
Bentley was elevated to full champion back in July when the former ruler Janibek Alimkhanuly opted to move up to super middleweight having previously failed to win the belt in 2022 off Alimkhanuly.
The WBO’s own official resolution states that when they elevated Bentley, they reserved the right to decide whether he would have a mandatory to deal with or whether he would be allowed a voluntary defence first.
Although the WBO initially granted Bentley a voluntary defence, it then accepted the petition of top contender Yoenli Hernandez to have his mandatory position immediately enforced.
Speaking to Ariel Helwani, Bentley explained he was made a promise that was later reneged upon once he decided to move promoters.
“We made the move to Zuffa based on the WBO President putting out a tweet acknowledging the fact that I get to make a voluntary defence before facing the mandatory next year.
“When it was rumoured I was leaving Queensbury and maybe signing Zuffa at the time that’s when things changed quickly to the point where I didn’t even have time to make a decision on what to do cause we’d already been promised the voluntary defence, so I just got caught in the middle of the politics of boxing.”
He was then asked to confirm he thought that was because he had moved promoters.
“That’s how I feel. There was no other reason for that statement he put out to be retracted. They’ve now taken the title, and the person that was mandatory, Hernandez, can’t fight for it until next year anyway. So you’ve just taken the title off me for no reason.”
Queensberry had been lining up a fight between Bentley – who hadn’t fought for 16 months before his last fight in April – and Liam Smith this weekend in Liverpool, which had been approved as a voluntary defence, but never ended up happening.
The 31-year-old was also refused permission to defend the belt against Shane Mosley Jr this Saturday night at London’s Copper Box Arena by the WBO so is now very much in limbo.
