By Miguel Rivera
The World Boxing Council has donated the WBC's "Huichol" belt to a museum in Mexico City, after the commemorative title was rejected by Saul "Canelo" Alvarez.
The sanctioning body created the title for the purposes of awarding the belt to the winner of Canelo's Cinco De Mayo battle with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., which took place earlier this month at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Even before the event took place, Canelo was very clear that he wasn't interested in receiving that belt or having any sort of dealings with the WBC. After Canelo dominated Chavez Jr. over twelve rounds, he remained firm in his position of walking away from the WBC's commemorative title.
The belt will be delivered to the Museum Soumaya de Polanco before finishing in the Museum of Sport that is budgeted to open at the end of the year.
"We have decided that this belt must be with the people. It will be delivered today to the family of former President Adolfo Lopez Mateos and then will be taken to the Soumaya Museum before ending up at the Museum of Sport. It will be shared with Mexicans and foreign visitors," Sulaiman told ESPN Deportes.
Canelo explained earlier this month, that his anger with the WBC is stemming from a dispute with Sulaiman from a year ago - when the WBC applied pressure on Canelo to make a mandatory defense of his WBC 160-pound title against Gennady Golovkin.
Canelo, who at the time was occupied with a legal battle in Miami, vacated the title and turned his back on the sanctioning body when they set a date for a purse bid and refused to postpone it. Canelo felt the WBC made statements that made it appear as if he was afraid of facing Golovkin - who was given the WBC title after Canelo vacated the belt.
"From the very beginning, the WBC wanted to get involved with this fight [with Chavez Jr.], and when we as a team said 'no, it's not going to happen, there is no WBC, it's not for a world title' - we knew that at some point something was going to come up. We spoke to Mr. Sulaiman and told him that he was not going to be involved. He then came up with this Huichol belt and I knew that he was going to use that against me in a negative way, to make me look like the bad guy - that I want nothing to do with the Huichols," Canelo stated.
"That not true, quite the contrary. My entire attire is made by Huichols. Since I've been 14 years old, I've been friends with people from the Huichol culture. All of my fights in Nayarit, they were there. My attire is being made by them, they have been invited, there is a Huichol fighter in my gym. This was just to be done to make me look like a bad guy."
"This was done [by the WBC] with other interests, there is a company there on the belt. [The belt has] been going through a tour, conferences, exhibits at the hotels."
Canelo is now scheduled to face Golovkin on September 16th, but the Mexican star stated in several interviews that he doesn't want the WBC title at stake - and only wants to face GGG for the WBA, IBO, IBF titles.