Sulaiman announced last year that a tournament involving eight fighters would ultimately crown a new champion at 154 pounds following Floyd Mayweather’s decision to retire from the sport.
After a good start, which resulted in undefeated Jermell Charlo being recognised as the new green and gold belt holder, Sulaiman admitted the rest of the eliminator bouts have now been scrapped.
“I’m so disappointed in the super-welterweight tournament,” Sulaiman exclusively told World Boxing News.
“We started a great idea and included many fighters. They committed to participate and everything seemed to be a great solution to find a successor to Floyd Mayweather as champion following his retirement, but unfortunately, the fighters and the fights fell out of the tournament.
“At this moment, we have Charlo (Jermell) who is the champion and he is going to do the mandatory against Charles Hatley as he’s won the opportunity (against Anthony Mundine) and that was part of the original tournament.
“But after that – unfortunately, and due to the other fighter’s decisions, we will just proceed as usual.
“We have the convention coming up so we will review the tournament and the division and go from there,” he added.
Charlo v Hatley could take place by the end of the year should the champion be content to get his mandatory duty out of the way, whilst Demetrius Andrade has decided to go an alternative route despite a win during the process.
The welterweight version also seems to have stalled due to many similar factors as Danny Garcia must now face Amir Khan once the Briton is ready to return to action following his loss to Canelo Alvarez.
