This week, the WBA (World Boxing Association) released a series of official messages that were ridiculed by fans and the media as "god operation". First, the WBA has made it clear that heavy gunner Edgar Blanga will be the mandatory challenger against the undisputed 168-pound super-middleweight super-middleweight jugemon Carneiro Alvarez this September.
Alvarez faces his fellow Mexican countryman Jimmy Monguia next month, and according to the WBA, once Alvarez beats Monguia, he must next face Blanga.
Second, the WBA announced that current WBA ordinary super middleweight champion David Morel will be promoted to the 175-pound light heavyweight division to compete for the vacant WBA ordinary title.
The reason why the WBA has stunned the outside world is that they completely ignore the rules they have set and make people confused, and it is estimated that even the other fighters in the WBA are confused.
According to the WBA's previous rules, the ordinary boxing champion of the organization will be the first choice of the "super" boxing champion, but now the WBA has skipped Morrell, who is the ordinary boxing champion, and canonized the first-ranked Berlanga as a mandatory challenger. Some people bluntly said that the WBA's move was to help Alvarez pinch the soft persimmon, and they cut off Morel's opportunity to challenge Alvarez, and at the same time, in order to make up for the other party, let Morel upgrade to fight for the vacant title.
The WBA explained Morrell's promotion as follows: The Championship Committee specifically allowed Morel to move up one class and compete for the WBA light heavyweight title against sixth-ranked Radivoj Karadzic in June this year. At the moment, Morrell's TGB promotion company has agreed that we are basing our decision on the historical ties between Morel and the WBA, as well as his achievements in his career.
The approval was conditional, one of which was that if Morel won the 175-pound title, he would have to give up the 168-pound title he previously held to become the WBA ordinary light heavyweight champion. Currently, the division's 'super' champion is Dmitry Bivol, who will battle Artur Beterbiev for undisputed supremacy in June.
For Blanga to become the WBA Super Middleweight Mandatory Challenger, the WBA explained it this way: The Tournament Committee decided that with Morrell being promoted, Berlanga would be the WBA's mandatory challenger at 168 pounds, and he defeated Padeleg McCrory in his final bout and is now the organization's forced challenger.
Ironically, the WBA announced as early as the year before last that it would cut the number of boxing champions, starting with the abolition of ordinary titles and transitional titles. At first, the WBA was actively advancing, but in 2024, related titles have sprung up like mushrooms after a rain.
Probably in view of the doubts of the outside world, the WBA had to explain, but their explanation was really speechless: any other situation will be subject to the WBA's interpretation, and the WBA will cancel all previously issued statements.
The usual operation should be that the WBA asked Beranga and Morel to compete for the mandatory challenge qualification, but they did not do so, an important reason is that Alvarez has extraordinary market influence and has the qualifications to choose opponents, so both boxing organizations and organizers hope to achieve the purpose of low risk and high return through the so-called "right pairing", so it means that high-risk, low-reward fighters like Morel need to wait longer.
Morel could have opposed the WBA's decision, but like David Benavidez before him, Morel eventually agreed. Benavidez is the WBC interim super middleweight champion and has the mandatory qualification to challenge Alvarez, but unfortunately the WBC just refused to approve it, and at the same time, like the current WBA, he gave Benavidez another path, which is to promote the opponent to rise to 175 pounds and compete with Oleksandr Grozdik for the WBC interim title of boxing.
The WBA and WBC rulings mean that Alvarez doesn't have to face Morel and Benavidez and instead chooses easier targets, which will be good for Alvarez, who has avoided two of the most dangerous fighters at 168 pounds, and is so "in one go". Considering the operation, it is foreseeable that if Alvarez defeats Berlanga in September, it seems that he will face IBF mandatory challenger William Scal next, who is Scalard?