After the recent defeat of "Vicious" Victor Ortiz by Josesito Lopez boxing fans have been wondering who will step up to the plate and face the current WBC Light Middleweight (154lbs) champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez. The list of possible names is extensive with the likes of Miguel Cotto, Javier Maciel, Carlos Molina, Ricardo Mayorga, Cornelius "K9" Bundrage, Marcos Maidana, Josesito Lopez, Acelino Freitas, Austin Trout and Erislandy Lara all being mentioned by one source or another.

The strongest rumours seemed to suggest that Canelo Alvarez would be defending his WBC title against the current WBA "regular" champion Austin Trout. The Trout v Alvarez bout seemed on paper to make plenty of sense with it being a unification between two top 10 Light Middleweights. Sadly earlier this evening the WBC nixed the bout in the bud with a statement reading:
“We do not accept unification, because if we agree we would be losing authority. We are not going to take away the exclusivity because we own the WBC brand."

Seems funny that just a week prior to this statement the WBC and WBA had a unification bout down at Minimumweight between Kazuto Ioka and Akira Yeagashi with Ioka unifying those to title belts. In the past unification bouts have been seen by boxing fans as "the holy grail" or bouts even more so when both fighters are generally regarded as top 10 fighters in their division.

The WBC had yet more surprises for us. Not only had they prevented a very promising unification bout between two youngsters but presumably they had also ruled out Cornelius Bundrage (the current IBF champion)-as long as he defeats Cory Spinks this coming weekend. They also pushed 3 possible names, one is James Kirkland-a fighter who has recently suffered and injury and will likely still be recovering by the mooted date of the Canelo bout, one is Carlos Molina-a fighter that would test Canelo in ways he's never been tested, a genuinely good fight and 36 year old Acelino Freitas.

Freitas, a former champion down at Super Featherweight (130lbs) and Lightweight (135) retired in 2007 following a stoppage loss Juan Diaz though recently returned from his retirement to stop countryman Michael Oliveira. The win over the unproven Oliveira has some how earned Freitas a #15 ranking at Light Middleweight by the WBC, a ranking that enables him to challenge Canelo for the world title.

Whilst Freitas was once an excellent fighter he is no Light Middleweight and the folk at the WBC need to take a long hard look at themselves here for trying to feed Canelo a faded and much smaller Brazilian. Sadly however the idea of a Freitas v Canelo fight does rather sum up Canelo's uninspiring reign as a world champion which has seen him generally defending against Welterweights (147lbs) such as Alfonso Gomez, Shane Mosley and Kermit Cintron as well as winning the then vacant title in a bout against Matthew Hatton.

Don't be shocked if the WBC manage to confuse us all over the coming weeks until an opponent for Alvarez is eventually named.
 
If your a hardcore boxing fan I'm almost certain that you'll know that the Minimumweight division had one of its biggest fights this week as Kazuto Ioka unified the WBA and the WBC titles as he defeated countryman Akira Yaegashi. Just 10 days later, on June 30th the "interim" WBA Minimumweight title will be up for grabs as Edwin Diaz faces Jesus Silvestre.

For many the main issue for this fight will be the fact the WBA are collecting 2 sanctioning fees inside a month for world titles in a single weight division. We however have more than just that one issue.

Back in November 2011 Jesus Silvestre fought for this very same title (the "interim" WBA Minimumweight title) and actually lost to Paipharob Kokietgym in a very hotly contested bout. Since then Paipharob hasn't defended the title nor has he been moved into a "regular" title fight, and yet Silvestre has managed to be given another chance to fight for the title. Since losing to Paipharob Silvestre has only fought once, beating Marvin Diaz (who entered the bout with Silvestre with a record of 1-1-1, 1). So is issue 2 and 3-Why did Paipharob lose the title? What has Silvestre done to be given another chance at the title?

However the biggest issues aren't with Silvestre who is a very decent fighter who has recorded a record of 24-3 (18) with losses to Jose Alfredo Rodriguez (who went on to win an interim title at 108lbs) Donnie Nietes (the current WBO champion at 108lbs) and Paipharob Kokietgym. They are instead with Edwin Diaz a fighter who has a record of 15-17 (6)-yes he has lost more bouts than he has won! Diaz, a 30 year old Panamanian simply should not be fighting in any type of "world" title bout.

For us at weirdboxing.info we feel the need to speak out about things and sadly this fight has everything wrong with it. It has the feel of a cash grab by the WBA who have just had a sanctioning fee paid in this division 10 days earlier. It has an undeserving challenger in Edwin Diaz (who is admittedly on the run of his life, but still this fight is undeserved) and an expected winner (in Jesus Silvestre). It has also seen a loser in an interim title fight (just 7 months previous) getting another chance to fight for the interim title.



NOTE-
After this article was published the fight actually got pushed back and has been rescheduled for July 14th.

    Boxing's alphabet boys get beat

    One of the biggest issues with the sport of boxing is the fact we simply have too many organisations and too many titles. This part of our site looks at the stupidity of those organisations, the bad rankings and of course the way they treat their titles.

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