Boxing: WBC Rejects Austin Trout as Opponent for Canelo Alvarez

The World Boxing Council on Wednesday rejected WBA junior middleweight champion Austin Trout as a potential September opponent for their champion Canelo Alvarez.

Trout (25-0 14 KO), who won the vacant WBA belt from Canelo's brother Rigoberto in 2011, was seen as the likeliest next opponent for a card that has seen several high profile fighters drop out for various reasons.

Alvarez (40-0-1 29 KO) was originally supposed to face veteran Paul Williams on September 15th but that fight was cancelled due to Williams suffering a career ending injury.

James Kirkland was then offered the fight but dropped out, and Victor Ortiz lost his shot when he was defeated this past Saturday night in Los Angeles by unheralded Josesito Lopez. 

More interesting than the rejection is perhaps the logic the WBC employed to scuttle the fight.

In a statement reported on Fightnews.com the WBC stated: “We do not accept unification, because if we agree we would be losing authority. We are not going to take away the exclusivity because we own the WBC brand.”

So the WBC has rejected this matchup because they reject unifying the belts. This is the exact type of nonsense that has caused most boxing fans to stop taking the sanctioning bodies seriously. 

In an age of super champions, diamond champions, silver champions and one thousand and one interim champions, the WBC has shown again that they don't get it.

On the list of approved opponents from the WBC are James Kirkland, who got a gift victory over Carlos Molina in his last outing and already rejected the fight, the aforementioned Molina, and Acelino Freitas.