By Mesuli Zifo

South African Thomas “Tommy Gun” Oosthuizen and Colombian-born Canadian Eleider Alvarez will now battle for the WBC silver light heavyweight title when they face each other on the undercard of Lucian Bute-Jean Pascal clash at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec on January 18.

The pair were initially slated to contest for the WBA interim title after Beibut Shumenov was elevated into the super champion status paying the way for Juergen Braehmer and Marcus Oliveira to contest for the regular title in Germany this Saturday.

Shumenov will also be risking his crown on the same day against Tamas Kovacs at Alamodome, San Antorio in Texas.

However after promoters released information that Oosthuizen and Alvarez had been approved for the interim crown, the WBA quickly made a u-turn and disqualified the pair from fighting for their title.

Oosthuizen is fresh from a less than convincing points victory over Argentinian Ezequiel Maderna defending his IBO super middleweight title in his home country this past November.

He struggled to make the weight before the fight forcing him to move up a division to the light heavyweight where his fight against Alvarez will be his first in the division.
However he already occupies the seventh spot in the WBA ratings even though he is yet to fight in the division.

His promoter Rodney Berman who is still imploring him to produce more convincing performance reciprocating his talent says the WBC has approved the fight for its silver belt.

“It is good that these two will fight for something because their clash will be highly anticipated taking into consideration that they are both unbeaten,” Berman said.

Oosthuizen, 25, is yet to taste a defeat in 24 fights with two draws against Isaac Chilemba and Brandon Gonzales who are both considered unlucky not to get the decisions.

Alvarez is also unbeaten in 13 bouts but at 29-years old he is considered a bit long in then tooth.

Berman says the fight together with Bute-Pascal clash will be shown live on HBO.

“Tommy will have to look good because eyes will be on him to live up to expectations,” he emphasised.