By Aragon Garcia: The WBC honored Saul Canelo Alvarez and Jermall Charlo on Wednesday in upgrading both of their titles with their organization.
To start off, the WBC appointed Canelo Alvarez (52-1-2, 35 KOs) as their new WBC Franchise middleweight champion. The WBC board of governors approved the new rule 3.26 in their rules & regulations for the WBC Franchise middleweight champion designation for the highly talented Canelo.
As the new WBC Franchise Champion, Canelo can enjoy the status the carries over to his mandatory obligations with the sanctioning body. In other words, Canelo is freed up from having to make tiresome mandatory defenses against the different challengers. Canelo is now able maximize his time by fighting the best at 160 and 168 .
WBC upgrades Jermall Charlo to middleweight champion
With the WBC creating a new title for Canelo, it briefly left the WBC middleweight title vacant. The WBC took care of that by appointing interim WBC 160 pound champion Charlo to the full WBC middleweight champion. It’s a great move by the WBC, since Charlo had been waiting for the former middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin to defend against him since 2017.
GGG should have done the right thing and defended against Charlo, but he was too busy defending against Vanes Martirosyan and Canelo. The WBC tried to get GGG to face Charlo to earn a title shot against Canelo for a third fight, but Gennady wasn’t interested in doing that.
Here’s what the WBC said about Charlo being appointed as the new WBC 160 pound champion:
“With Canelo’s appointment as Franchise Champion WBC interim champion Jermall Charlo is now confirmed as WBC middleweight champion of the world.”
Charlo’s fight this Saturday night against Brandon Adams (21-2, 12 KOs) will be his first title defense of his WBC middleweight belt at the NRG Arena, in Houston, Texas. The fight will be shown on Premier Boxing Champions on Showtime.
The WBC Franchise champion designation that the World Boxing Council has given Canelo is well earned. He’s been one of the WBC’s world champions for 11 years now, and he’s shown that he’s one of the best fighters in the sport during that time. Canelo’s recent wins over Gennady Golovkin, Daniel Jacobs and Rocky Fielding show that he’s the one of the best fighters in the boxing.
Alvarez is now knocking on the door of #1 pound-for-pound star Vasiliy Lomachenko in getting ready to take that spot from him. If Canelo beats the likes of WBO middleweight champion Demetrius Andrade and/or WBA Super World super middleweight champion Callum Smith, he’ll be ready to snatch the top spot.
Here’s what the WBC’s said in appointing Canelo as their new Franchise middleweight champion
“The Word Boxing Council is proud to proclaim the designation of WBC Middleweight World Champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez as WBC Middleweight Franchise Champion. The WBC is bestowing that honor upon Champion Alvarez due to his many accomplishments which have positioned him as major worldwide attraction in boxing, and in light of his unquestionable boxing career linked to our organization.”
The WBC’s decision works well for Canelo and Charlo
It would have been difficult for the WBC to force Canelo to defend against his mandatory Charlo due to the different networks that would be involved. Canelo is signed with DAZN, whereas Charlo is PBC and fights on Showtime. Even if the WBC had ordered the two to face each other, it likely wouldn’t have resulted in a fight between them.
The different networks would make it an impossible situation to get that fight made. But now with Canelo the Franchise champion, he doesn’t need to worry about mandatory defenses. That’s Charlo’s job as the new WBC middleweight belt holder.
GGG is ranked #1 with the WBC, so he should get busy fighting Charlo if he wants to win back his old title. That would be a good move on GGG’s part to earn a third fight with Canelo, because he’s not going to give him a third fight.
Canelo told Golovkin to go earn the trilogy fight by winning a title. Unfortunately, he didn’t follow Canelo’s orders, and instead he fought the low ranked Steve Rolls. Golovkin didn’t make the right move, but now he can. He needs to tell his promoter Tom Loeffler to setup the fight with Charlo so he can show Canelo that he’s deserving of a third fight.