Andre Berto, the WBC Welterweight champion, is said to be trying to secure 36-year-old former junior welterweight champ Randall Bailey as his sixth title defense. But why is the mandatory challenger Selcuk Aydin being ignored again?
Berto won the title in June of 2008 against Miguel Rodriguez and has since made successful defenses against Steve Forbes, Luis Collazo, Juan Urango, Carlos Quintana and Freddy Hernandez.
It was widely reported late last year that Berto would be forced to defend against leading available mandatory (compulsory) challenger Selcuk Aydin – or be stripped by the WBC of his title. Berto’s last compulsory defense was in January of 2009 against Collazo. That’s 24 months ago.
Former WBC champ Floyd Mayweather is the current #1 ranked contender for Berto but he is on vacation and not interested in boxing at this time. So that leaves Selcuk Aydin, the #2 ranked contender as the leading available challenger. Aydin won a WBC Eliminator last year, and presumably paid his WBC sanctioning fees, but is strangely not being considered as Berto’s next opponent.
Could the WBC, by ignoring Selcuk Aydin, be leaving itself vulnerable to a massive lawsuit to deal with? Aydin, from Turkey, is promoted by Ahmet Oner and Don King.
We will try to contact the WBC offices to follow up on this story. Stay tuned…
