By Ryan Burton

On December 1st WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson (29-1-1) will face his mandatory challenger, WBC interim titlist Oleskandr Gvozdyk (15-0) at the Centre Videotron in Quebec City.

"The contracts are signed. It is a mandatory fight between the champion and the interim champion. We should have a great fight that day," WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman told BoxingScene.com in a recent interview.

Stevenson has caught some flak for some of his defenses during his title reign that began in 2013 when he stunning knocked out Chad Dawson in the first round of what was seen as just another title defense for Dawson.

The 41-year-old Quebec resident hasn't been active in recent years but was in a very exciting battle with former 168 pound champion Badou Jack that ended in a draw in May.  Gvozdyk will represent a back-to-back quality opponent for the Haitian-Canadian.

Sulaiman feels that some of the criticism of Stevenson is unwarranted and that his resume should be more deeply examined.

"Stevenson knocked out Tony Bellew. Stevenson is one of the great champions of today who has had bad luck and been haunted by inactivity where it is not his fault. He is a great champion and a great representative of the sport and I am very proud to have him as one of our champions," Sulaiman explained.

Sulaiman also has high praise for recently crowned WBO super welterweight champion Jaime Munguia who recently made the second defense of his title.  He captured his title in stunning fashion, easily blowing out Sadam Ali in May in their HBO televised main event.

"Munguia is a WBC family member. He was our international champion and he called me and asked me, 'will you allow me to take this opportunity to fight on HBO in a few weeks?' I said, 'absolutely go ahead and win the title and be successful and you'll comeback to the WBC whenever it is time.' He is very young and very talented. I hope they don't rush him too much. The activity can be great but also can be complicated when you rush a career which has happened in the past when you don't let that cycle close. You need to develop a boxer's career with good matchmaking," remarked Sulaiman.

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