Since Floyd Mayweather announced his retirement, the WBC have been looking into the best way of crowning new champions in the 147 and 154 divisions ruled by ‘Money’ and have decided on staging a pair of knockout competitions.
Details regarding the contests have so far been sketchy, although Sulaiman has now revealed his vision for the lucrative events and says the WBC have been working tirelessly in a bid to stage the first fight in the coming months.
“We don’t exactly know how many fighters will be in the tournament yet, but we will start the process of sending letters to the fighters to receive confirmation of who is willing to participate in the process,” Sulaiman exclusively told World Boxing News.
“Once we have a pool of fighters for each division, then will start with the size and brackets in the tournament. Ideally, it would be eight fighters to take part with an ultimate champion winning three fights.
“We expect it to be direct elimination and take no longer than one year to finalize the process.”
In the past, the WBC have attempted to stage tournaments without similar success enjoyed when Showtime put together a six-man event at super-middleweight – eventually crowned Andre Ward as the winner in 2011.
This time around, and with a WBC title will on the line in each of the competitions, Sulaiman has received positive feedback from the boxing community and hopes to make an official announcement by the end of the month.
“It’s a combination of finding new ways to get the world involved and also my father’s dream of doing a World Cup, so I am very enthused about it and so are a lot of people. We are just making sure that the process goes smoothly and that we consider all the viable options that could arise during the organisation,” he said.
Regarding a possible name for the series, Sulaiman added: “We have a couple of alternatives so far, maybe the World Cup or WBC World Tournament, but we are going to try to get everything set in November to start as early as January next year.”
The likes of Danny Garcia, Amir Khan, Shawn Porter and Robert Guerrero are handily placed to be involved at welterweight, whilst Charles Hatley, Demetrius Andrade, Jermell Charlo and John Jackson could feature at super welterweight.
