By Dan Ambrose: The WBC junior middleweight title is now vacant after the Manny Pacquiao, the WBC champion after defeating Antonio Margarito for the vacant strap in November, opted not to defend the belt.
The next in line to fight for the belt will be number #1 WBC ranked contender Saul Alvarez (35-0-1, 26 KO’s), and his opponent for the belt will be selected by the World Boxing Council board, according to fightnews.
It’s unclear whether Alvarez will decide to fight for the title once the WBC selects another contender to face Alvarez. You would have to figure that Alvarez’s promoters won’t let him fight number #2 contender Alfredo Angulo or #5 contender Vanes Martirosyan if they end up getting selected by the WBC, because those are very tough match-ups for the still raw 20-year-old Alvarez and his promoters from Golden Boy Promotions might like the idea of putting Alvarez in with someone that would actually have a good chance of beating him like Angulo and Martirosyan.
Alvarez is facing EBU welterweight champion Matthew Hatton on March 5th at the Honda Center, in Anaheim, California. Hatton, a weak puncher, is the perfect opponent for Alvarez to fight. Recently, Gold Boy has been matching Alvarez against 39-year-old Lovemore N’dou and 39-year-old Carlos Baldomir.
You have to figure that if Alvarez beats Hatton, he will continue to be matched softly for the foreseeable future to ensure that he doesn’t take too much punishment and end up losing to someone better than him.
Pacquiao was able to fight for the WBC junior middleweight title against a member of his own Top Rank stable when Margarito, a welterweight for the vast majority of his career, was given the number #1 ranking by the WBC after having only fought a fringe contender at that weight shortly before the Pacquiao fight. This was like Pacquiao fighting a blown up welterweight for the WBC title, albeit at a catch weigh for 150 pounds. Despite all this, it still counted for Pacquiao as having won an 8th world title.
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