Less than 10 days since the WBA “Super” and WBC middleweight champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez (52-1-2) claimed the IBF middleweight belt, bad news for the Mexican came from the International Boxing Federation (IBF).
On May 4 “Canelo” defeated Daniel Jacobs (35-3-0) via UD and won his third belt in the division, but now there’s a good chance he’d be vacating the strap. The reason for this is that IBF has ordered Alvarez to defend his title against Sergiy Derevyanchenko (13-1-0) by August 4.
Feel like a superhero👌🏽💪🏼#sergiyderevyanchenko #metabolicnutrition #derevyanchenkoteam #derevyanchenkoculcay pic.twitter.com/6woqsGOlEl
— Sergiy Derevyanchenko (@SDerevyanchenko) February 13, 2019
The Ukrainian is the mandatory challenger for the belt and IBF has sent an official letter to “Golden Boy Promotions”, notifying them on the solution.
“Negotiations should commence immediately and be concluded by June 15, 2019,” the IBF wrote, going on to add the fight must take place “on or before” August 4.
“It’s really surprising and unfortunate that we didn’t get a congratulations letter from the IBF like we would in the past,” Eric Gomez, Golden Boy Promotions president, said to ESPN. “We will be meeting with Canelo in the next week or so to see what he would like to do.”
The chance of seeing Alvarez back in the ring before August 4 are close to none, because he’ll be aiming to fight his next opponent in the middle of September. The 28-year-old could request an extension to the date or seek a unification bout in order to avoid his mandatory defense. If a solution is not found, he may have to vacate the newly won belt. The only belt in the middleweight category that it’s not around the waist of Alvarez belongs to Demetrius Andrade which next title defense is against Poland’s Maciej Sulecki on June 28.
