By Miguel Rivera
World Boxing Council (WBC) president Mauricio Sulaiman has come out and stated that his organization has no issue with Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez.
The Mexican superstar has a heated relationship with the sanctioning body, and that issue dates back to a disagreement from a year ago.
Canelo first became upset with the sanctioning body last May, when they pressed him to make a mandatory defense of his WBC middleweight belt against Gennady Golovkin. At the time, Canelo was on trial in Miami in connection to a legal dispute with former promoter All Star Boxing.
When the WBC scheduled a purse bid and refused to postpone the date of that procedure, Canelo vacated his title. The sanctioning body would later make Golovkin, who held the interim-belt, the full WBC middleweight champion. That action only angered Canelo.
Canelo then became further enraged, because he claims the sanctioning body made it appear as if he was afraid of facing Golovkin.
Earlier this month, Canelo rejected the WBC's "Huichol" belt - which the sanctioning body had created and planned to offer to the winner of Canelo's fight with Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.
"From the very beginning, the WBC wanted to get involved with this fight, 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.
And Canelo also made it clear that when he faces Golovkin he is not going pay anything to the WBC. He only wants to have Golovkin's other three titles - IBF, IBO, WBA - at stake.
"If this fight happens it will happen without the WBC. For all of the other titles but not theirs. Why? Because of the way they treated me. Why did they make all these demands when they knew I was occupied by the case in court at that time," said Canelo.
The fight with Golovkin has since been finalized for September 16.
Sulaiman expects the WBC to be involved with the fight.
"They can try and do what they want, the World Boxing Council champion is Golovkin. And if they try to do something is a direct and inexplicable action, by no means will Golvkin accept that because he is our champion," Sulaiman told media in Mexico City.
"[The situation with Canelo is] very simple, very practical and open, the WBC has absolutely nothing against Canelo or anybody else. [The only thing that the WBC had done here is] offer friendship, opportunities and unconditional support. The fact that he doesn't see it like this is a matter of revising history, because the facts are public."