By William Mackay: WBA president Jose Sulaiman laid down the law for WBC middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., saying that he’s got to defend his title against former WBC middleweight champion Sergio Martinez next or else the World Boxing Council will have to follow the rules and presumably strip Chavez Jr. of his paper title.

Sulaiman told ropeadope.radio.com “The winner of the February 4th fight [between Chavez Jr. and Marco Antonio Rubio] must meet Martinez if Martinez wins on March 17th, so if the champion does not comply with that or Martinez doesn’t, then we [the WBC] has to follow the rules…you have to lose the title. I hope that this does not happen.”

Well, Chavez Jr’s promoter Bob Arum is likely going to put the WBC in the position where they’re going to have to decide whether to enforce their rules or ignore them and let Arum continue to match with other fighters and not Martinez. Arum has already said that he plans on matching Chavez Jr. up with either Andy Lee or Antonio Margarito next.

Arum isn’t even talking about matching Chavez Jr. in two fights, as he says he doesn’t have any intention of matching Chavez Jr. against Martinez two fights from now. This obviously puts Sulaiman in the position to where he’ll need to force the issue if Arum chooses to go ahead and put Chavez Jr. in with Lee or Margarito for a title defense. It would be a situation where Arum is doing his own thing by matching Chavez Jr. against the guy that he wants to rather than putting Chavez Jr. in a dangerous fight against Martinez and possibly suffering a knockout loss.

Sulaiman believes that Chavez Jr. is the best fighter in the middleweight division for some odd reason, saying “Yes, they [Saul Alvarez and Chavez Jr.] are the best fighters in their division.”

I wonder if Sulaiman believes this or is just saying that to pick up points with Chavez Jr. and his promoter Arum.