WBC President: Shawn Porter vs. Danny Garcia For Interim WBC Title Possible

With the news that unified WBA and WBC welterweight champion Keith Thurman is injured again, WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman said he’ll likely have to make an interim welterweight title while Thurman recovers.

Sulaiman talked with ESPN Deportes and said the WBC can’t continue with its welterweight champion on the shelf and talked about making an interim title fight between Thurman’s two mandatory challengers Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia.

“Unfortunately he’s gotten injured once more, can’t continue on as champion and has spent more than a year without defending the title. We’ve been patient with throughout the injury he first had but with this new injury, it’s very possible that a fight for the interim title be ordered between Porter and Garcia, who are the two mandatory challengers,” Sulaiman said.

Porter has been the WBC’s primary mandatory challenger for nearly a year after defeating Andre Berto in a title eliminator in Brooklyn, New York and has been calling out Garcia since last summer. Sulaiman had been wanting to make an interim title fight between the two boxers for several months but a fight was never made or ordered.

The WBC then made Garcia’s last fight against Brandon Rios a title eliminator. Garcia won the fight and became the secondary mandatory challenger, meaning that Garcia would get to fight Thurman after Porter got his shot against Thurman. In the immediate aftermath of Garcia’s win over Rios, Porter interrupted Garcia’s post-fight interview and had a heated verbal altercation with him.

Thurman was scheduled to fight at the Barclays Center in May, but had told Fightful that he wouldn’t be fighting Porter in his first fight back. Thurman recently suffered a hand injury and his return fight has been postponed. Thurman has not fought since unifying the WBA and WBC welterweight titles by beating Garcia by split decision.