Over the past year, the WBC controversially stripped both Terence Crawford and Shakur Stevenson of their titles following their respective career-defining victories over Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Teofimo Lopez, sparking backlash throughout the boxing world.

Crawford was stripped almost three months after defeating Alvarez because he allegedly did not pay the WBC sanctioning fee for either of his previous two fights — against Alvarez and Israil Madrimov. Stevenson, on the other hand, was relinquished of his WBC crown just three business days after becoming a four-division champion when the prestigious sanctioning body claimed he did not pay a fee for his fight with Lopez.

Advertisement

The part that boxing fans cannot understand? The WBC title was not even on the line for Stevenson vs. Lopez in January, yet the WBC still asked for a $100,000 sanctioning fee.

Crawford told Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show” on Wednesday that he believes the WBC’s hasty decision to strip his close friend, Stevenson, was a direct result of his own feud with the sanctioning body.

“I definitely agree with [Stevenson that the WBC targeted him because of my issue with them],” Crawford said. “And that wasn’t right at all, for them to put my name in the conversation that I didn’t have nothing to do with anything that Shakur had going on. So you blame me and try to punish him? It wasn’t right at all.”

Crawford claimed that WBC president Mauricio Sulaimán has since apologized to him in person over their public dispute last year, however the sanctioning body has not attempted to rectify how it handled the situation.

Advertisement

“Nothing [has happened to make peace with the WBC since I was stripped],” Crawford said. “I saw Mauricio … not too long ago. He came up to me and he apologized to me, and he told me that he shouldn’t have said the things that he said. But I kind of felt some type of way, because in my mind, we’re face-to-face and you’re apologizing to me, but you talk negative to me in the public, online and in interviews.

“You should’ve done a public apology to me — that’s how I feel. But I’m not here to keep going back and forth with somebody, so cool, I accept your apology. He said he wanted to sit down with me and talk as men. I’m cool with that because we always had respect for each other face-to-face.

“Now when I’m not around, then it’s different, and I just didn’t like that,” Crawford continued. “I didn’t like the fact that instead of them coming back and [saying], ‘Hey, let’s talk about this, let’s renegotiate,’ they were just basically like, ‘No, we’re the WBC, we ain’t taking that. We’re not like all the other organizations. No, you’ve got to pay us this.’ I was just like, ‘Oh, really? Y’all ain’t getting nothing now because I didn’t agree to nothing.’ I didn’t agree to nothing, so I was just doing that off the strength that I was looking out for all the organizations because that’s what I was going to do.”

The WBC asked Crawford for a $300,000 sanctioning fee for his fight with Alvarez, which was .6% of his reported $50 million purse. Crawford responded at the time with an expletive-laden nine-minute rant, saying he’d reached agreements with boxing’s other three major sanctioning bodies — the WBA, WBO and the IBF — over a fee for the “Canelo” fight and that the WBC should’ve accepted what he was willing to pay them rather than demanding more.

Advertisement

Crawford explained to Uncrowned on Wednesday that he isn’t a fan of the overall manner in which boxing’s sanctioning bodies currently operate. The former pound-for-pound king believes boxers should have more input into how sanctioning fees are spent and that fighters should be financially rewarded for becoming world champions instead of being hit with more expensive bills just days after the belts are wrapped around their waists.

“I think some of [the sanctioning bodies] are getting too much money, and we don’t have no say-so on where the money is going and what they’re doing with the money and things like that,” he said.

“I do feel some type of way about that because we put our life on the line and do everything that we have to do. We turn around and make it to be a world champion, and we have to pay to be a world champion — not only the time we become world champion, but every single time that we step in the ring. The more money we make, the more money we have to pay to these sanctioning bodies. I think that’s not right.

Advertisement

“I think you should get a prize for winning [a world title]. I think it should be a bonus when you win a championship. And then when you become unified, I think it should be another bonus. And then when you become undisputed, it should be another bonus. I don’t think they should be constantly taking from the fighters that work they’re butt off to get to where they are right now. And knowing that most fighters come from nothing, it’s tough.”

The gaming PC is more than capable of 1440p gaming for those one a tight budget

With many separate PC components still suffering from high prices in relation to demands from the AI industry, many gamers could save money by grabbing a pre-built PC. Dell’s Alienware brand has long stood out for its high-performance gaming laptops and PCs.

Despite this, its high-performance machines similarly come with a high price. Fortunately, though, some shoppers could get their hands on a machine with all the newest gen parts while saving over £600 in the process.

Currently, those looking to upgrade their PC gaming setup can get their hands on an Alienware Autota Gaming Desktop ACT1250 at a 31% reduced cost. This brings its overall price down from £1,969 to £1,349.

READ MORE: PS5 players snap up official controller for £43 instead of £60 ahead of GTA VI release

READ MORE: Dunelm heavily reduces £104 swivel chair that looks like it belongs in a luxury 5-star hotel

At this more affordable price point, you get access to an Intel Core Ultra 7 265F CPU that comes with 20 cores and a turbo frequency of 5.3GHz. This makes it more than capable of pushing out as many frames as possible when gaming, well into the 120fps range, even at 1440p resolution.

Alongside this, you’ll get the latest generation Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060Ti graphics card. This GPU is based on Nvidia’s Blackwell architecture and is more than capable of pushing out good-looking graphics up to 1440p resolution, without much struggle.

All this is paired with a 1TB SSD and 16GB of DDR5 RAM, providing access to the latest generation of memory, which should provide plenty of speed for multitasking and running games. However, if you want something a bit more powerful, such as for 4K gaming, you could upgrade the device on Amazon while still saving money in the process.

Advertisement

The same PC can be upgraded with an Intel Core Ultra 7 265KF Series 2 CPU and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 with 32GB of DDR5 RAM at a 17% discount. This brings the upgraded gaming machine’s price down from £2,469 to £2049 and also comes with the added benefit of liquid cooling that should more efficiently cool down the more powerful parts.

Otherwise, if you would rather spend a bit less, you could opt for this ASC Gaming PC Tower, which is available on Amazon for £709.99. This pre-built gaming PC is fitted with an AMD Ryzen 5500 CPU and NVIDIA RTX 4060GPU, making it more suitable for 1080p gaming.

If you would prefer to have an AMD GPU in your machine, you could also opt for the OcUK Gaming Mach 5R from Overclockers, which has dropped from £1,999.99 to £1,899.95. This PC comes equipped with a powerful AMD Ryzen 7500X3D CPU and a Radeon RX 9070XT, making it more than powerful enough for 1440p and some 4K gaming.

Advertisement

Shoppers who already grabbed the Alienware Aurora from Amazon awarded it 4.8 stars, with one happy customer writing: “It’s a lovely machine in looks and performance. It runs my games at roughly 180FPS.

“It’s very quiet to run even in performance mode (there is a quiet option and I’m guessing it would be silent). Although I don’t use the lighting, it has so so many options. It kept me amused for quite a while trying them all and even making my own sequence!. You can buy it with confidence.”

Another added: “It seems to be working as expected. So far, I’m happy with the purchase. Plays everything I throw at it on High / Ultra settings at 60 fps.”

Advertisement

While a third said: “Easy setup. Looks great. Great for games. Wanted Alien one of these for years, interest-free credit, well worth the money.” While a fourth said: “Purchased March 2026 and waited a few months to write a review… I use it every day for gaming, watching videos and browsing the net.

“I also use it to edit my GoPro and DJI videos, and it’s very fast at processing the cut edits. Pc plays games smoothly, and at the highest quality too, PC is silent even after hours of gameplay.”

While the PC has faced a major reduction, shoppers should keep in mind that while 16GB of RAM will be effective for most games and tasks, it may struggle somewhat with newer titles in the near future that may be more demanding for memory. Furthermore, the cheaper version of the PC is only air-cooled with a fan, which might not be enough for serious PC players who would prefer liquid cooling.

Philippines’ Alexandra Eala returns to Mexico’s Renata Zarazua during their women’s singles first round tennis match on the second day of the 2026 Wimbledon Championships at The All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, southwest London, on June 30, 2026. AFP

Alex Eala collected a milestone—for herself and for the country—with her victory at Wimbledon. She also earned something else: A shot at redemption.

Fresh off her first main-draw win at the All England Club, Eala will face Maya Joint in the second round of the Wimbledon Championships, a rematch of a showdown that produced one of the most unforgettable defeats of her young career.

The two last met in the 2025 Eastbourne Open final, where Eala came within a point of claiming her first WTA title before Joint rallied to deny her despite the Filipino ace holding four championship points. The defeat stung, but it also marked history as Eala became the first female player from the Philippines to reach a WTA singles final.

“A really great match,” Eala recalled after her Wimbledon opener. “I’d love to have the chance to improve on some things that I could have improved from that match.”

A year later, much has changed.

Eala has continued her steady climb on the WTA Tour, rising to a career-high No. 29 and arriving at Wimbledon as the tournament’s 29th seed—her first appearance as a seeded player at a Grand Slam. Joint, meanwhile, slipped outside the Top 80 after battling a back injury earlier this season.

Serena’s conqueror

Still, rankings offer little comfort against an opponent Eala knows can thrive on the biggest stages.

Joint opened her Wimbledon campaign with an eye-catching victory over Serena Williams in a three-set battle, 6-3, 6-7 (6), 6-3, on Centre Court, serving notice that she remains a dangerous contender.

Eala earned her place in the rematch with an emphatic 6-1, 6-2 victory over Mexico’s Renata Zarazua, collecting her first career Wimbledon main-draw win after exiting in the opening round in her debut last year.

“I’m very happy with my first round,” Eala said in an interview with the WTA website. “I think that I played really well and kept the intensity throughout the whole match, so I’m hoping to keep this momentum going throughout the week.”

Against Zarazua, the Filipina weathered several extended rallies before reeling off five consecutive games to seize the opening set. Backed by a vocal Filipino contingent, she carried that momentum into the second set, breaking early and never allowing her former doubles partner to mount a sustained comeback.

Aryna Sabalenka has responded strongly to comments made by her first-round opponent Teodora Kostovic at the 2026 Wimbledon Championships, with the Belarusian also coming under criticism from some fans for her own reaction to the situation. The World No. 1 spoke after her win over McCartney Kessler secured her place in the third round.

Before their opening-round clash on Monday, Kostovic had expressed confidence ahead of the match, saying she wanted to “see if Sabalenka can deal with my power” and backing herself to cause an upset. However, the Belarusian proved too strong on the day, winning 6-2, 6-3.

Following the match, Aryna Sabalenka was asked again in her post-match press conference about Kostovic’s pre-match remarks and gave a firm response:

“I think it was more like she was trying to trick herself and she was just trying to boost that self belief that she actually didn’t have. Sometimes you have to really fake it til you make it. Sometimes you have to stay grounded and be real and work with what you have.”

“So for me that message was a bit.. I would understand if it would be reasonable. But like I went in the match and was like… ‘Which power was she talking about?’ Sometimes it works if you actually have that self belief. If you’re just trying to fake it and you don’t actually believe in it, it’s not gonna work,” she added.

Fans were quick to take to X (formerly Twitter) to criticize Aryna Sabalenka, with one user writing:

“She is World no 1. She should be empowering female players and giving them confidence and instead – she is making fun of them calling them fake. What a shame. Worst No. 1.”

“Damn!!!! 💔💔 this’s so bad from her.. a leader, a number 1; you should be motivating the rising stars, the young players not spitting venomous savage on them, this’s absolutely disappointing message from a supposed-to-be professional idol,” another wrote.

“Oh Aryna give us a breakkkk woman you won you’re World No. 1. RELAX, ….SHE’S 18. Literally let the kid be … it’s not that deep,” one account posted.

“Narcissistic Projection right here,” another added.

“Rybakina has to be a new number one. She would never say such stupid and arrogant to other tennis players,” one fan commented.

Aryna Sabalenka set to face off against Jelena Ostapenko in Wimbledon 2026 3R

Aryna Sabalenka has advanced to the third round of the 2026 Wimbledon Championships after defeating Teodora Kostovic and McCartney Kessler 6-1, 7-6(9). She is now set to face Jelena Ostapenko in the next round, with the Latvian coming in off solid wins over Harriet Dart and Antonia Ruzic.

If Sabalenka gets past Ostapenko, she could face Naomi Osaka in the fourth round, followed by a potential quarterfinal clash with Karolina Muchova. Jessica Pegula may await her in the semifinals, while Elena Rybakina or defending champion Iga Swiatek could emerge as possible final opponents.