By Dan Ambrose: World Boxing Council president Jose Sulaiman says the winner of the proposed May 4th unification fight between WBC junior middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (41-0-1, 30 KO’s) and WBA champion Austin Trout (26-0, 14 KO’s) has only 15 days to decide which belt they’ll be keeping because the WBC doesn’t allow their champions to hold more than one belt at a title.
The one exemption they’ve made recently is WBA/WBC light welterweight champion Danny Garcia, but he’s going to be forced to give up one of those belts after his next fight against Zab Judah, Sulaiman says.
Speaking with zocalo.com.mx, Sulaiman said “The Council does not accept unifications. In such cases, the WBC accepts the fight, but the winner decides which title to keep. If you stay with the other agency, then we get a new [WBC] champion. If Canelo wins, he has 15 days to get rid of one of the titles.”
This isn’t good news for Trout because he’s been talking about wanting to collect all the junior middleweight belts, but it doesn’t look like the WBC is going to let him do that. Trout can capture the IBF, WBA and WBO titles, but he can only keep the WBC title for two weeks if he’s holding down other titles.
It matters little if Trout or Canelo can’t keep two titles. Boxing fans will recognize them as the best fighter in the division regardless. This is a fight that is pitting the best two fighters in the division, and the winner will be perceived as the best fighter at 154.
The fight still isn’t confirmed as of yet. Golden Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer said he’s got several other options he’s looking at for the fight with Canelo, but this could be just a tool for Schaefer to get Trout to come in at a lower asking price for the fight. It’s kind of like what Floyd Mayweather Jr. recently did with Robert Guerrero by saying he’s looking at fighting Devon Alexander instead of him.
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