World Boxing Council mandatory fight assignments leave room for ‘super-fights’

World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman sought to bring clarity to the 2017 boxing schedule Wednesday when he announced mandatory title defenses for each division.

Although some of the bouts remain in negotiations and others may prove impossible to make, Sulaiman’s session at the World Boxing Council’s annual convention presses promoters to pursue the sanctioning body’s preferences.

Junior-welterweight champion Terence Crawford may be able to avoid having to defend his title if he can get a “super-fight.”

Carl Moretti, a representative of Crawford’s promotional company, Top Rank, won approval for Crawford to avoid a mandatory defense. He said Crawford could have a pending “super-fight” in the spring, a strong indication the boxer is the front-runner to fight Manny Pacquiao if Floyd Mayweather Jr. opts to remain retired.

One of several bouts Sulaiman outlined is a March rematch of the super-flyweight title bout won by Nicaragua’s Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez over Mexico’s Carlos Cuadras. Their September date at the Forum was a fight-of-the-year candidate.

And amid criticism that the WBC has been too lenient with inactive champions from manager Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions stable, Adonis Stevenson (light-heavyweight) was pinned to a late-April match against the Feb. 24 winner of Lucian Bute and No. 1-ranked contender Eleider Alvarez.

Similarly, long-sidelined featherweight champion Gary Russell Jr. committed to a Feb. 11 date against mandatory challenger Oscar Escandon on a Showtime-televised card that features a welterweight meeting between Adrien Broner and Adrian Granados.

“I’m not frustrated by the time off. It gave me a chance to rest and preserve myself, to recover from injuries,” said Russell. “We’re ready to deal with the mandatory. Tough guy in Oscar Escandon. I want to be as active as possible.” He added that “the plan” is for three bouts in the calendar year.

One of those could be against South El Monte’s unbeaten Joseph Diaz Jr., who by winning his co-main event Saturday at the Forum gets an elimination date against England’s top-ranked WBC contender, Josh Warrington, with the winner becoming Russell’s mandatory.

Russell said he’s willing to fight anyone in the deep featherweight division, and that he’s also mulling a move to super-featherweight to avenge his only loss to Vasyl Lomachenko.

Another Premier Boxing Champions fighter, unbeaten super-welterweight Jermell Charlo of Houston, was assigned a February date (likely Feb. 18, possibly in Texas) for his mandatory defense against Dallas’ Charles Hatley.

Glendale’s Vanes Martirosyan, ranked No. 3 in the division, was ordered to fight a title-eliminator against the highest-ranked available challenger — unbeaten Erickson Lubin.

Another Southland fighter, Palm Springs’ former two-division champion Timothy Bradley Jr., was assigned a welterweight qualifier against unbeaten 2012 U.S. Olympian Errol Spence because top-ranked contender Amir Khan has reported an injury.

The Bradley-Spence bout has obstacles, however, considering Bradley hasn’t fought since April and has aimed for an early 2017 return, perhaps against Shawn Porter.

Yet, Spence has to wait until mid-February for a health extension the International Boxing Federation gave to its champion Kell Brook, who’s in talks to fight his mandatory challenger Spence next.

Sulaiman set up a possible massive fight overseas by designating England’s Callum Smith the mandatory for the Jan. 14 title-unification winner between England’s James DeGale and Las Vegas’ Badou Jack.

The council president also said he wants the winner of the Jan. 28 bout between lightweight champion Dejan Zlaticanin and unbeaten former two-division champion Mikey Garcia of Riverside to meet World Boxing Assn. champion Jorge Linares later in 2017.

In other divisions, Sulaiman said he’s content to wait for Saturday’s Alexander Povetkin-Bermane Stiverne heavyweight winner to set up a shot at champion Deontay Wilder, and he said England’s cruiserweight champion Tony Bellew is free to fight heavyweight David Haye as long as he returns to fight the winner of the Mairis Breidis-Marco Huck eliminator.

In the vacant super-bantamweight division, Mexico’s Rey Vargas and England’s Gavin McDonnell were assigned to fight for the belt.

The greatest mess is in the middleweight division, where Gennady Golovkin wears the belt after Canelo Alvarez vacated it and there were several step-aside deals that have kept the division from staging a mandatory title defense since 2013.

Top-ranked Jorge Sebastian Heiland’s Argentine manager, Sebastian Contursi, railed then at an assignment into a four-man tournament as Golovkin pursues a mandatory World Boxing Assn. defense in March and possibly Alvarez in September.

Sulaiman’s ruling clears the way for what is expected to be the biggest fight of 2017.

“Please trust the WBC,” Sulaiman told Contursi. “This decision is best for your kid.”