By Luke Furman

There appears to be two dates in play for the light heavyweight showdown between Adonis Stevenson and Eleider Alvarez.

As previously reported on BoxingScene.com, the fight is officially getting pushed back to January 2018.

According to their mutual promoter, Yvon Michel of GYM, there are two dates in play at the moment - January 26 and January 27.

The fight would be held on the Videotron Center in Quebec, Canada.

"I got the information [yesterday] morning [regarding the dates], I have to communicate with people of the Videotron Center. Eleider hoped it would have taken place earlier so he could spend Christmas with his family in Colombia [instead of being in training camp], but he understood that he will be locked down during the holiday season," Michel told La Presse.

Alvarez has been the mandatory challenger, for nearly two years, to Stevenson's WBC light heavyweight title. Stevenson (29-1, 24 KOs) and Alvarez (23-0, 11 KOs), who are both advised by Al Haymon, were ordered to fight each other by the World Boxing Council.

Alvarez became the mandatory challenger to Stevenson following his victory over Isaac Chilemba in November 2015 in Quebec City. The champion has not faced a mandatory challenger since he knocked out Tony Bellew in November 2013 in Quebec City. He has made six defenses of his title since.

The fight was originally planned for December 16th, but there became a conflict when popular middleweight David Lemieux had finalized his return on the same date, in Canada, in the main event of an HBO televised card. Lemieux will challenge WBO champion Billy Joe Saunders in a high-profile fight.

Michel was not looking to put local fans on the spot, with having to choose between two events going head to head in the region.

"In light of the recent events [David Lemieux fighting on December 16 in Canada], we contacted Showtime to tell them it was not a good idea to do this [the fight between Stevenson and Alvarez] at the same time," Michel said to RDS.

"It would be ridiculous to put these two events against each other. It would not serve the boxing industry or the fans."

Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org.