WBC to create belt for Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight

BoxingNews24.com

By Eric Baldwin: The World Boxing Council will reportedly be creating a special memorial belt for the May 6th fight between Saul Canelo Alvarez and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. to fight over. There are no titles on the line for that fight, as it’s taking place at a catch-weight of 164 ½ pounds.

Canelo is going to be moving down to middleweight after he fights Chavez Jr., and he’ll be fighting at the full weight for the division at 160l. bs. This is good news, because Canelo is approaching 27, and it’s starting to look strange to boxing fans that he’s not been willing to fight at the full weight for the middleweight division despite fighting at catch-weights in 2014 to 2016.

Having a specially made up title created by the WBC won’t do much for the fight to create the illusion that Canelo and Chavez Jr. are fighting for a real belt. For them to that, they would need one of the sanctioning bodies to make one of their titles available to them at super middleweight.

The boxing public has mixed reactions towards the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. fight. Some fans love the fight, while others see it as another example of soft match-making by Golden Boy.

Former two-time world title challenger Lucas Matthysse (37-4, 24 KKOs) will be fighting on the undercard of the Canelo vs. Chavez Jr. card against an opponent still to be determined. Matthysse will be fighting at 147. This is his first fight in the welterweight division. Matthysse was stopped in the 10th round in October 2015 by Viktor Postol. It was fight in which Matthysse suffered an eye injury, which has kept him out of the ring ever since

“We are going to talk to Roberto Diaz, Eric Gómez. We have Lucas Matthysse in mind,” said Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya to ESPN Deportes. “He wants to move up to 147 pounds. We want to put together a Mexican billboard, an international billboard but mostly Mexican boxers. This event goes through Mexico, for boxing and we want to make the best fights for the public,” said De La Hoya.

There will be a promotional tour for the Canelo-Chavez Jr. fight that will start at a still to be determined date in the second half of February. They plan on starting the promotional tour in Mexico City, and then moving to New York and other cities in the U.S.