I believe a title unification is first priority over any mandatory. Bellew may be his mandatory, but if HBO wants KOvalev-Adonis next (I am almost positive they do) he will have little to no choice.
The IBF allows unifications ahead of mandatories.
But Stevenson is the WBC champion....they don't really encourage unification fights and actually force the fighter to drop one of the belts in the event that a unification happens.
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