IBF strips Canelo for not facing mandatory challenger William Scull
Read a few of my thoughts as well as the organization's complete ruling
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The IBF on Friday made official what was expected. The organization stripped Canelo Alvarez of its super middleweight world title, leaving him still with the titles of the three other organizations but no longer with undisputed status.
Alvarez became the only undisputed 168-pound champion in division history, regardless of the number of belts in the era, by knocking out Caleb Plant in the 11th round to win the IBF title to add to his WBC, WBO and WBA belts in November 2021.
Now, after four defenses of the undisputed title — a record for the four-belt era — the IBF is the first one to go. The reason is because the IBF ordered its mandatory defense against the wildly unaccomplished, unknown, untested and wholly undeserving William Scull, who may be a very good fighter but has done absolutely nothing remotely worthy of ascending to No. 1 in the IBF rankings and putting Alvarez, a legendary, historic figure and the sport’s top star, in a position where he either had to fight Scull or be stripped.
Mexican superstar Alvarez (61-2-2, 39 KOs), 34, on Friday announced that his next defense would take place in the main event of a Premier Boxing Champions card on Sept. 14 (Prime Video PPV, PPV.com, DAZN PPV) — Mexican Independence Day weekend — at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas against unbeaten Puerto Rican Edgar Berlanga (22-0, 17 KOs), 27, who also happens to be the WBA’s mandatory challenger (even though that bout is not due yet).
Many have voiced displeasure over the selection of Berlanga as the opponent but he is a million more times known and accomplished than Scull. That is indisputable.
There were efforts to make a step-aside deal with Scull, whose team was interested and did fight on the undercard of Alvarez’s decision win over Jaime Munguia in May. A recent purse bid was canceled with the sides saying only they had made some sort of deal without providing any details. Whatever it was, it didn’t last long because Alvarez is not fighting Scull, there is no step-aside deal and Alvarez was stripped.
Now the IBF is poised in the coming days to order Scull (22-0, 9 KOs), 32, a Cuban native fighting out of Germany, to face Russian Vladimir Shishkin (16-0, 10 KOs), 33, who fights out of Detroit and is the next contender in its rankings.
Here are the latest IBF super middleweight rankings for June, which make it quite clear that having Scull No. 1 is a pathetic joke: 1. Scull (Cuba); 2. Shishkin (Russia); 3. Christian M’Billi (France); 4. Berlanga (United States); 5. Kevin Lele Sadjo (France); 6. Diego Pacheco (United States); 7. Jaime Munguia (Mexico); 8. Erik Bazinyan (Canada); 9. Simon Zachenhuber (Germany); 10. Osleys Iglesias (Cuba).
Some will say, hey, the IBF is just following its rules, and that is true. The organization, more than any of the others, is a stickler for its rules. However, the rules are antiquated in the current boxing environment and desperately need to be tweaked. And as I have believed for many years, the IBF rules protect the rights of a challenger far more than of the champion.
Further, the IBF has broken its own rules at least twice in recent times, doing so when it allowed Filip Hrgovic-Daniel Dubois to be for the interim heavyweight title in June and when it allowed Jaron “Boots” Ennis and Karen Chukhadzhian to fight for the interim welterweight title last year.
So, Alvarez will go on fight Berlanga, Scull and Shishkin will fight the vacant belt in relative anonymity and life goes on.
You can read the entire IBF official ruling and its explanation for stripping Alvarez below:
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