Canelo and the WBC are in a dispute yet again. That should be surprising given the WBC’s long history of favoring Mexican fighters, but the two haven’t gotten along for some time now. Plus, we have news on Artur Beterbiev’s contract situation and clarification on a trio of world title pictures. The boxing world marches on like always.
- First, the WBC has removed Canelo Alvarez (49-1-2, 34 KOs) from their rankings following his decision not to enroll in their clean boxing drug testing program. This is a very strange decision for Canelo and Golden Boy to make here given his badly damaged reputation following his pair of failed drug tests in the build up to what was supposed to be his big money rematch with Gennady Golovkin. This only casts more suspicion on the popular and now controversial Mexican star. Comically, Canelo remains the Ring Magazine middleweight champion, however. Golden Boy has owned the legendary publication for some time now and not too shockingly haven’t made the move.
- IBF light heavyweight titleholder Artur Beterbiev’s (12-0, 12 KOs) and Montreal based promoter Yvon Michel’s legal battle over his contract status officially entered the Canadian court system this week. A ruling is expected soon. Beterbiev contends that his contract is no longer valid while Michel contests that idea. Should Beterbiev be freed, he will almost certainly sign with Top Rank as has been expected for some time now. Yvon is claiming publicly that he expects to win, however. I really have no insight on how this will go. I just hope Beterbiev becomes more active in taking fights either way.
- Caleb Plant (17-0, 10 KOs) and Rocky Fielding (26-1, 14 KOs) have agreed to meet this summer in an IBF eliminator for the right to fight for their super middleweight belt currently held by James DeGale. DeGale is obligated to “unify” with interim titleholder Jose Uzcategui first, however. The tentative date here for the eliminator would be July 28th on the show targeted to be headlined by lightweight unification between Mikey Garcia and Robert Easter Jr, but nothing about that potential card is official yet.
- Vasyl Lomachenko’s WBO junior lightweight belt will likely be vacant soon as the Ukrainian elite plans to stay at lightweight. Top Rank’s Christopher Diaz (23-0, 15 KOs) of Puerto Rico and Japan’s Masayuki Ito (23-1-1, 12 KOs) are the top two ranked fighters n the WBO 130 lb rankings and will be ordered to meet for the title assuming this happens. The fight is targeted for mid-summer and would likely headlined a Top Rank card on ESPN+, potentially also on July 28th. That is a sneaky potential action fight. Too bad it might clash with a much bigger card on Showtime.
- In what could pass for a horror film, embarrassing former featherweight titleholder Billy Dib (43-4, 24 KOs) and actual top contender Tevin Farmer (25-5-1, 5 KOs) have been ordered to meet for the vacant IBF junior lightweight title and will do so this summer. Rumored dates are either July 28th, yet again, or August 4th. For once, I kind of hope this clashes with other cards on the 28th so I am not expected to watch it in any timely fashion. Look, Farmer is a gifted fighter, but he is a defense first kind of guy. Billy Dib makes for horrible, horrible fights to watch. Their styles meshing together is the stuff of my nightmares.
- Finally, ESPN+’s boxing studio show The Boxing Beat starring Dan Rafael is set to put its first episode up on the streaming service sometime today. At least it is according to Rafael’s twitter. I am not expecting much, but I’ll check out the first episode at least when it is up.
