As BoxingScene previously reported, Mexico’s Canelo Alvarez announced on Friday that he will challenge Rocky Fielding of Britain for the WBA "regular" super middleweight title on Dec. 15 at New York’s Madison Square Garden.
The fight will be Canelo’s first since his September majority decision victory over Gennady Golovkin for the unified middleweight world title.
“Taking a big challenge in my career and representing the WBC as the 160 lbs champion, I will now fight for the world title for the 168 lbs vs Rocky Fielding, the current WBA champion,” Canelo wrote on Twitter.
The 28-year-old Mexican will take a 50-1-2 record with 34 knockouts into the fight.
Fielding, 31, is on a six-fight winning streak that improved his record to 27-1 with 15 knockouts.
He won the WBA super middleweight title with a technical knockout of German Tyron Zeuge in July.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya, who promotes Canelo, will be speaking with numerous networks to determine where the contest will be land.
Canelo has been featured on HBO for several years, but the network recently announced their decision to drop boxing from their programming by the end of the year.
"Things have changed a lot, with HBO out of boxing there are a lot of digital TV channels and digital channels, there is a lot of money in boxing," De La Hoya said.
"Currently Canelo has no contract with anyone, so we are now in a unique position. Now my job as promoter is to negotiate those contracts and take [the fight] to the appropriate television network. The people in Mexico will always be supporting Canelo. I've had a lot of conversations with numerous television stations worldwide. The first thing is that we are going to talk to HBO in the next few days when we return to Los Angeles and we will determine the future of Canelo, which is very bright."
