By Dan Ambrose: Sergio Martinez appears to be getting the shaft with the WBC reportedly on the verge of sanctioning the February 4th fight between WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Marco Antonio Rubio. The WBC previously ordered Chavez Jr. to fight Martinez next during the WBC’s convention in mid-December.

It looked like a done deal with Martinez finally about to get his title shot against Chavez Jr. However, the WBC changed their minds about ordering Chavez to take the fight with Martinez and instead are about to allow Chavez to defend his title against Rubio next.

World Boxing Council secretary general Maurcio Sulaiman, the son of WBC president Jose Sulaiman, told RingTV “Rubio is the No.1 contender, but this is not a mandatory for Chavez. But, we could of course respond to a sanctioning request for the fight. If their promoter [Bob Arum] sends and makes a request, I say why not? I see no reason not to sanction the fight. So if a request is sent by the promoter, then the WBC will immediately respond.”

There it is. It looks like it’s academic at this point that the WBC is going to sanction the Chavez Jr. vs. Rubio fight once Arum sends in his request to have the fight sanctioned. It looks like the WBC is just waiting for the e-mail from Arum and it’s a done deal. This wouldn’t be a such big deal if the WBC hadn’t ordered Chavez Jr. to fight Martinez next. It just seems wrong to have Martinez then ignored while Chavez Jr. can turn around and fight someone else. The Rubio-Chavez Jr. fight is a quality fight but not nearly as interesting a Martinez vs. Chavez.

Martinez’s promoter Lou Dibella is thinking of suing the WBC to get the fight, although he’s also hoping that something can be worked out. Dibella likely is talking about a step aside fee and/or a guarantee that Martinez will be next for Chavez Jr. I would be suspicious about any guarantees since we’ve already see Martinez lose out on this fight.