WBC President says Canelo Alvarez is not running away from Benavidez

Mauricio Sulaimán, president of the World Boxing Council (WBC), assured that Saúl ‘Canelo’ Álvarez is not fleeing from David Benavídez after choose Edgar Berlanga as his next rival.

In an interview with Medio Tiempo, Sulaimán explained that There are things that prevent the fight with Benavídez from happening and highlighted that Canelo Álvarez has other fights just as attractive as that of the Mexican Monster.

“To think that Canelo is avoiding Benavídez is an aberration. Canelo has fought everyone. At 21 years old he faced Floyd Mayweather, he has nothing to be ashamed of, on the contrary, we should all applaud his career. It is a matter of understanding that the Canelo-Benavídez issue is very popular, but there are also situations that do not align for the fight to take place,” he said.

“Benavídez moved up to light heavyweight, he is a fighter who has matured, he is tall, strong, he already won the interim light heavyweight title. Canelo is now super middleweight and even middleweight. But the Canelo-Benavídez issue is there, but it is not the only fight. There are many fights that are attractive and that we should highlight.rather than looking for Canelo to avoid Benavídez, which is not correct. Benavídez is a great champion and hopefully one day that fight will happen,” he added.

As the now unified Mexican 168-pound champion did not take him into account for his fight in September and chose Edgar Berlanga, The Mexican Monster decided to abandon the idea of ​​facing him.

David Benavídez became interim WBC champion and mandatory challenger at 175 pounds after defeating Oleksandr Gvozdyk, so he had to send an appeal letter to the body to make it official that he wanted to remain the mandate holder in the new category and not Canelo Álvarez.

For three years Benavídez was the mandatory challenger and he tried every way possible to get the attention of the four-division Mexican champion, but he never got an answer. Even though fans and many experts in the sport wanted to see this big fight, the man from Guadalajara did not show real interest and the WBC also failed to enforce the rules to order the fight.

In addition, Canelo Alvarez set a condition that the only way he will accept the fight the thing is They offered him a purse of $200 million dollarsDavid Benavídez asked Turki Alalshikh for help to make this duel a reality, but the sheikh did not like the idea either.

In fact, Alalshikh wants the Mexican faces Terence Crawford and the Mexican Monster will face the winner of the fight between Dmitry Bivol and Artur Beterbiev, which will take place on October 12 in Saudi Arabia.

David Benavídez, interim WBC light heavyweight champion, defeated Oleksandr Gvozdyk in his debut at 175 pounds by unanimous decision. The Mexican Monster He has a record of 29 wins, 24 of them by fast track and no losses. as a professional.

For his part, Saúl ‘Canelo’ Álvarez, 34, was able to recover from a bad start and He beat his compatriot Jaime Munguía on the judges’ cards in Las Vegas. The unified 168-pound champion has a career record of 61 wins (39 by knockout), two losses and two draws as a professional.

Keep reading:
· IBF officially stripped “Canelo” Alvarez of his super middleweight title
· David Benavídez gives up on Canelo Álvarez and will stay at 175 pounds
· David Benavídez asked the WBC for two more weeks to decide whether he stays at 175 or goes down to 168