If everything indicates that the opportunity to organize a great fight between Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez and David ‘Mexican Monster’ Benavidez is already gone, the president of the World Boxing Council (WBC), Mauricio Sulaiman, maintains a small glimmer of hope that a miracle will happen and this world championship fight for the 168-pound title will take place.
Canelo has consistently refused to accept Benavidez’s challenge and set him the condition that someone pay him a purse of $200 million, which at the moment, no one is willing to pay. Faced with the futile wait, Benavidez has decided to continue his career in the next 175-pound division, where he aspires to a fight against the undisputed champion of the division, the Russian, Artur Beterbiev.
However, in Mexico, Sulaiman insists on his hope that this fight could finally take place. He did so in a column he writes for the newspaper El Heraldo de Mexico, in which he presented a list of 10 wishes, which could become great fights for 2025, which just completed this Wednesday its first week.
His main hope is the long-awaited fight between Canelo and Benavidez because he considers it would be historic for world boxing, as if it were to happen, it would immediately ignite the discussion about who is the best fighter in the super middleweight division.
But this fight is not the only great desire of the president of the ‘green and gold’ organization, as there are latent rivalries that deserve to be settled. Among them, Sulaiman spoke of the possibility of a possible fight between the British heavyweights, Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, who have been overshadowed by the surprising performance of current champion, Oleksandr Usyk.
Just like an eagerly awaited fight between Shakur Stevenson and Gervonta Davis, who has already announced his retirement as an undefeated lightweight champion, but which, if negotiated, would be considered one of the best fights of the year worldwide.
In addition, Sulaiman also gave space to women’s boxing, including a possible third fight between Amanda Serrano and Katie Taylor as the most anticipated fight, after two previous encounters, won by the Irishwoman in close decisions and which are now considered contemporary classics of women’s boxing.
Therefore, she noted that a third fight “would be a gift for boxing fans” and “a demonstration of the competitive level that women have reached in this sport”.
Finally, he indicated that the WBC will seek to speed things up so that these 10 fights are possible in 2025 to have a great year in boxing.
The 10 best fights the WBC wants for 2025
- Tyson Fury vs Anthony Joshua
- Terence Crawford vs Jaron Ennis
- Canelo Alvarez vs David Benavidez
- Shakur Stevenson vs Gervonta Davis
- Naoya Inoue vs Junto Nakatani
- Jesse ‘Bam’ Rodriguez vs Junto Nakatani
- Devin Haney vs Mario Barrios
- Katie Taylor vs Chantelle Cameron
- Katie Taylor vs Amanda Serrano 3
- Caroline Dubois vs Katie Taylor
Read the full article here
