The WBC president uncle Mauricio has also appeared to change his mind on David Benavidez's next opponent.
WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman said this Thursday through his social networks that David Benavidez's next opponent will not be Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez as had been said in recent hours, and that the interim light heavyweight championship will be disputed by the American fighter of Mexican descent and the Ukrainian Oleksandr Gvozdyk.Source https://www.marca.com/en/boxing/2024/02/23/65d896bdca47411a698b45b4.htmlThey are having a hard time keeping their story straight. Whatever comes out of the mouth of Sulaiman is likely just damage control. They don’t want to upset Canelo because they don’t want to lose their percentage of his purse. They will most likely continue to allow Canelo to evade Benavidez for as long as he pleases.
I don’t believe the $55 million offer was real. It’s just something that Lewkowicz put out there to get some publicity for Benavidez’ next fight. Sampson’s word isn’t very credible and he’s defaulted on purse bids before so where would he even get that kind of money to offer Canelo. PBC isn’t getting much of a budget from Amazon if all their cards are going on PPV, so Haymon can’t make those kind of guarantees either. It would be more money than what Canelo made against GGG, Canelo vs. Benavidez isn’t close to that magnitude.