For the moment, Saul "Canelo" Alvarez has no intention of giving up the WBO light heavyweight title, according to World Boxing Organization President Francisco "Paco" Valcarcel.
This past Saturday night, Canelo climbed up by two weight divisions to score an eleventh round knockout victory over Sergey Kovalev to capture the WBO title at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Canelo is still holder of the WBA middleweight title and the WBA "regular" super middleweight title.
Most observers expect Canelo to drop down and campaign at super middleweight, as the boxer admits that it won't be easy for him to return to 160-pounds.
As of now he's not ready to give up his WBO strap.
"Alvarez wants to keep the WBO light heavyweight belt," Valcarcel said to Vasiliy Konov when responding to the question about the possibility that the Mexican star would give up the title.
Gilberto Ramirez is the mandatory challenger to the title, by virtue of being the WBO champion at 168 and deciding to move up in weight. Ramirez, who was ringside at the MGM this past weekend, holds a significant size advantage when compared to Canelo.
It will be interesting to see if the WBO actually strips Canelo, should he fail to defend his belt, or allow him to keep his title with zero defense of the belt being made - which appears to be the case by WBA. Canelo won their "regular" title at 168 in December of 2018 and has never fought at the weight since. After Canelo announced his return to middleweight back in May, the WBA announced their decision to allow to keep his belt at 168.
Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org.