Canelo Álvarez’s ongoing feud/hate-fest with the World Boxing Council (WBC) keeps on keeping on, this time with the President of the organization telling the Mexican pugilist to focus more on his next opponent and less on petty differences with one of boxing’s governing bodies. Mauricio Sulaimán is in the news this week for telling Canelo to focus more on Gennady Golovkin and less on the continuing disagreements over the world championship belt currently held by GGG.
The main point of contention for Canelo and his camp is that he does not want to compete for the WBC belt, as a result of his disinterest in anything related to that organization; Canelo feels like they did not have his back during his legal issues last year, forcing him to give up the middleweight belt while he was getting sued by his ex-promoter.
This issue popped up earlier this year in the build-up to his fight with Julio César Chávez Jr., wherein Canelo was to receive a belt made by a huichol artist if he defeated the son of one of Mexico’s boxing legends. The belt had been created to be handed out to fighters who won showdowns on days surrounding Cinco de Mayo and September 16th–Mexican Independence Day. Canelo defeated Chávez Jr. with ease and refused to accept the huichol belt, which led to the WBC auctioning it off for charity.
As the WBC is sanctioning the Canelo-GGG super-fight, Sulaimán assured press this week that Golovkin would in fact be defending the belt: “He is the world middleweight champion and will defend his title, as we sanction the combat. The winner will be the WBC champion, but if either of the two wishes to renounce the title or not accept it, that is a decision that we do not make.”
Sulaimán went on to give some unsolicited and passive-aggressive advice to Canelo, telling him that “it would be recommended that [he] concentrates on his own thing, which is training for the biggest fight of his life” instead of telling the WBC what to do with their belts.