By
David Rosenberg
Unbeaten junior middleweight Vanes Martirosyan is not happy with the WBC's latest idea to stage an elimination tournament to decide a mandatory contender for junior middleweight champion Saul "Canelo" Alvarez. The WBC fell under a black cloud after placing the vacant title up for grabs in Alvarez's fight with welterweight contender Matthew Hatton. Alvarez won the fight, by unanimous decision, last Saturday in Anaheim, California.
"Because there is much controversy, there will be an elimination tournament. Alfredo Angulo, who is number two, will fight in England or Mexico against Ryan Rhodes, who is the number four in the world. Vanes Martirosyan and Saul Román will face each other, and the winner will go against Paul Williams, who is already medically cleared, and whoever wins that will be the other contender," Sulaiman was quoted by BoxingScene.com's Jhonny Gonzalez.
Vanes wants Alvarez to be involved in the tournament. In his eyes, the WBC is protecting Canelo because, in his opinion, any of the boxers involved in the elimination tourney would beat the young Mexican boxer.
"Who is Canelo? Any of us mentioned in the story would beat him. He thinks he is Mayweather or Pacman. This is just too funny. He beat a Hatton but it wasn't Ricky. It was Matthew. He couldn't get a KO win against a welterweight after all that talk about his power. Now have all the top guys fight each other to face him. It shows how much they are tryin to protect him," Vanes told BoxingScene.com.
"Why not put Canelo in the tournament? At the rate they are going, maybe they should move Pacman's brother, Bobby, up to junior middleweight and then rank him as the #1 contender and have Canelo defend against him."
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