By Carlos Boogs
BoxingScene.com reported earlier that former world champion Amir Khan was excluded from the World Boxing Council's October ratings.
On Tuesday, the World Boxing Council released a list of fighters who failed to register for their Clean Boxing program. Fighters who railed to register for the program by the WBC's deadline were removed from the rankings or stripped of their world title. Registration was mandatory for every fighter ranked in the top 15 or holding a belt under the WBC.
Khan (31-4, 19KOs), who is the mandatory challenger to WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia, was among the fighters named.
Also on Tuesday, the WBC released their rankings for the month of October and Khan has been removed from the number one position. His name has been replaced by Andre Berto, now ranked at 1.
World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman confirmed to BoxingScene.com that Khan was indeed removed his organization's rankings, but the former champion reached out to them ealier today. Khan does intend to enroll in the Clean Boxing program and the two sides are working things out.
Khan recently underwent two operations to fix an issue with his right hand. The last operation was a procedure where surgeons removed bone from Khan's hip and transplanted it into his hand. Khan is targeting a ring return early next year.
"He did not enroll in CBP . He contacted me directly today and we talked, he had surgery and explained lack of communication and will submit enrollment soon," Sulaiman stated to BoxingScene.com.
As far as Khan's standing, he is still the mandatory challenger to Garcia. But the WBC will review his status, and the status of every other division, during their annual convention in December.
"He is the mandatory of the division, each division will be reviewed during the annual convention," Sulaiman explained.
The last time Khan saw action was back in May on Cinco De Mayo weekend. He took a big gamble by moving up in weight, from 147 to a catch-weight of 155-pounds, in order to challenge Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez for the WBC middleweight title at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
