By Miguel Rivera
WBC super featherweight world champion Miguel "Alacran" Berchelt (32-1, 28 KOs) will have the opportunity to make a voluntary defense of his 130 pound title, before facing the winner of the fight between Miguel "Micky" Roman and Orlando "Siri" Salido.
This information was confirmed by the president of the World Boxing Council (WBC), Mauricio Sulaiman, who stated that the fight between "Micky" and "Siri" - which takes placeon December 9 in Las Vegas, which is going to have the WBC's interim-super featherweight world title at stake.
"Berchelt is our world champion, he is in recess for an injury that was suffered. He will be ready to return at the beginning of the year," said Sulaiman to the Mexican media.
He made it clear that Berchelt will have the opportunity to "make a voluntary defense if he wants it or go directly to the interim champion. It is already confirmed, Roman and Salido will go for the interim."
Berchelt captured the title in January with a TKO victory over Francisco Vargas. He then came back a few months later for a dominating decision win over mandatory challenger Takashi Miura of Japan.
On the other hand, Sulaiman admits that his organization is having a tough time selecting fighters and fights for their yearly awards, because there was a lot of quality in 2017.
"It will undoubtedly be difficult to choose the fighter and the fight [of the year]. It has been a very good year. There are Srisaket Sor Rungvisai, Gennady Golovkin, Deontay Wilder, Miguel Berchelt," the super flyweight, middleweight, heavyweight and super featherweight champion of the WBC, respectively.
For the best fight, "'Canelo' against Golovkin was undoubtedly the big one, also Berchelt against (Francisco) Vargas, I really liked that fight, it was dramatic; Badou Jack and James de Gale; Leo Santa Cruz and Carl Frampton was very good," he concluded.
