Abner Mares to become mandatory challenger to Ponce De Leon!

By Jack Price @PriceyJ97.

WBC President Jose Sulaiman has said that former two-weight world champion Abner Mares will become the organisation's mandatory challenger for Daniel Ponce De Leon's WBC featherweight world title.

Ponce (44-4, 34 KO's) was originally scheduled to face the initial mandatory challenger Jayson Velez on March 2nd but Velez withdrew due to an injury suffered in training. The WBC will now replace him, putting Mares (25-0, 13 KO's) in the mandatory spot.

Mares has just recently vacated the WBC super-bantamweight title to move up in weight in an attempt to become a three-division world champion. Sulaiman explained that "a fighter giving up his title to move up in weight, he becomes the mandatory challenger (to the WBC title at the weight above." He also said that "it would be great to see a fight between Ponce and Mares."

Chavez Jr could be stripped of WBC title!

Chavez Jr with WBC title.

WBC world middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr is likely to be stripped of his title if he does not face the current mandatory challenger Sergio Martinez.

In a recent interview, WBC President Jose Sulaiman announced that if Chavez Jr is unable to defend his title against the No.3 P4P fighter in the world Sergio Martinez the WBC will be forced to take strict action against him which will most probably result in him losing his title.

The announcement that Martinez would be made the mandatory challenger came last year at the WBC's 49th annual convention. However, they allowed Chavez Jr to have one fight before his clash with Sergio Martinez. Marco Antonio Rubio was chosen as Chavez's opponent but the bout never took place.

Sulaiman believes that Chavez Jr is not in the mood for defending his title but he did also say that he believes it his promoters that are the reason for the fight not happening. ''It is not Chavez that does not want to fight, it is his promoters'' said Sulaiman. The president and the fans are expecting the fight to happen so if it doesn't it will not only affect Chavez's titles but also his reputation.

At the moment there has been no reports of negotiations between the two camps but the talks are meant to start on March 18th.

We will do an update on the story as soon as we find out any extra information, so keep checking our site.