Canelo Alvarez shared comments on Friday about the International Boxing Federation’s decision to strip him of his middleweight title belt the day before.
Alvarez sent a tweet in both English and Spanish in which he said he was “ashamed” with his fans to have been unfairly stripped of his belt.
I'm very upset and ashamed with my fans, to be unfairly stripped of my belt by the IBF, but specially when i did not have the knowledge of the agreement that GBP match maker had signed.
— Canelo Alvarez (@Canelo) August 2, 2019
Alvarez had been in talks to try and defend his belt against mandatory contender Sergiy Derevyanchenko. The IBF even postponed their Monday deadline date to allow the sides a chance to negotiate, but no deal was reached.
DAZN, the streaming service that has Alvarez under contract, did not want to pay its full contractual $35 million price to Alvarez to fight a less attractive opponent. DAZN signed Gennady Golovkin to complete his trilogy against Canelo and wanted that fight to happen this fall. However, Alvarez’s promoter — Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions — did not want to make that fight.
De La Hoya blasted the IBF in a statement on Thursday over their decision.
“We are extremely disappointed at the IBF for forcing the world’s best fighter to relinquish his world title. We have been in serious negotiations with Sergiy Derevyanchenko’s promoter. We offered his team an unprecedented amount of money for a fighter of his limited stature and limited popularity, but the truth is that I’m now certain they never had any intention of making a deal. But instead they wanted to force us to relinquish Canelo’s belt. This is an insult to boxing and more importantly an insult to the boxing fans of the world. This decision validates already existing concerns about the credibility of the IBF championship. Canelo inherited a mandatory challenger by defeating Daniel Jacobs, the man who beat Derevyanchenko, so to strip him of his title without giving him enough time to make the best fight possible is truly what is wrong with boxing, and I plan to aggressively consider all legal actions possible.”
Alvarez, who held three title belts during his May fight against Jacobs, is now down to just one after the WBC made a change.
