Last year, the WBC introduced their new Franchise Champion and stated, "the Franchise Champion is a special designation and status which the WBC may bestow to a current WBC world champion, who is also an elite boxer and has achieved and maintains the highest of statures of the sport."
Canelo Alvarez was their first Franchise Champion and later Vasiliy Lomachenko became the second fighter to be bestowed with the status.
Alvarez captured the WBO light heavyweight title in his last fight in November when he stopped Sergey Kovalev in 11 rounds in Las Vegas. As per the rules of the Franchise Champion, he also defended that title which doesn't have a weight class.
WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman recently told us that fights like Canelo-Kovalev is one of the primary reasons they created this new designation.
"That is one of the purposes of the Franchise Champion. To allow him to go into the best challenges possible. He moved up to 175 and knocked out Kovalev. He might fight at 168 or 160. It is just a new concept. If people want to resist the change it is natural. I don't have all the answers but what I know is that I stand tall, happy, and proud to have this new designation just to allow the great fights to happen," Sulaiman told BoxingScene.com.
Alvarez appears headed towards a May 2nd clash against WBO super middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders. After fighting at 175 pounds Canelo doesn't want to drop immediately all the way down to 160 pounds. Sulaiman believes that Canelo will be an elite fighter at either weight.
"He can do 160 in a very healthy way. He is very strong but he is not that tall. He gives up an advantage every time he fights outside of 160," Sulaiman stated.
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