By Steve Kim

In what was a bit of stunning news, it was announced by the World Boxing Council that they were 'derecognizing' Miguel Cotto as their middleweight champion for in essence, not paying their sanctioning fees and what turned out to also be a step-aside fee to Gennady Golovkin.

On Saturday night, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez can still win this title should he defeat Cotto this weekend at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. It was decreed by the WBC that the winner of this bout had to face Golovkin, who by virtue of beating Marco Antonio Rubio last October earned the WBC-interim title and secured the mandatory spot.

Tom Loeffler,the managing director of K2 Promotions, reacted to this news by telling BoxingScene.com:

"That was a little surprising because the WBC actually went out of their way to grant the initial sanction when Cotto fought Sergio Martinez and Cotto wasn't even ranked in the middleweight division and they allowed him to make a voluntary defense against (Daniel) Geale and then Cotto was the one who came to us to actually seek our approval to fight Canelo."

"So it was just surprising that he wouldn't follow the rules for the title he wanted to hold onto. You can't take anything away from Miguel as a fighter, he's clearly shown he's a great champion, Freddie (Roach) has really elevated his game but it was surprising news to us that he couldn't work out the WBC situation with the sanction."

Should Alvarez defeat Cotto, there's no real guarantee that he wouldn't just vacate the belt and ignore the WBC mandate.

But, Loeffler affirmed - "The goal is very clear, Gennady wants to unify all the titles. The people who say the titles aren't important, the belts aren't important - are the people who don't want to unify them. Someone who wants to prove that they are the best in their division whether it's Wladimir (Klitschko) who wants to unify all the heavyweight titles, whether it's Gennady who wants to unify all the middleweight titles, they want to prove they are the best in the division."

Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.