By Miguel Rivera
Gilberto Jesus Mendoza, the President of the World Boxing Association (WBA), is overjoyed with Canelo Alvarez's decision to make the leap to super middleweight to challenge WBA "regular" super middleweight champion Rocky Fielding.
Canelo (50-1-2, 34 KOs) announced that he plans to fight Fielding on December 15th at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
It will be Canelo's first bout since capturing the WBA, WBC middleweight titles with a twelve round majority decision win over Gennady Golovkin last month at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The contest was a rematch of their bout from September 2017, which ended in a controversial twelve round split draw.
When Canelo had a bad falling out with the WBC in 2016, he was embraced by Mendoza and the WBA.
Mendoza couldn't be happier with Canelo's move to fight for another title under their control. Canelo also held a WBA world title at junior middleweight. A win over Fielding will make him a three division champion.
The move to fight in December was a big surprise for a lot of insiders, who expected Canelo to take a break until May of 2019 - Cinco De Mayo weekend. And if he decided to return in December, WBA mandatory challenger David Lemieux - who shares the same promoter as Canelo - was tabbed as the frontrunner opponent. Nobody had expected Canelo to move up to 168-pounds.
"For us it is a pleasure that in our near 100 years (of existence), that we have a boxer who is a reference for world boxing like Canelo Alvarez," Mendoza said.
"[The fact] that he made a decision to go against Rocky Fielding, it leaves me speechless and fills me with pride, that he's decided to take this path. I can only wish him luck, thank him for his loyalty and he knows that the WBA is his family."