By Dan Ambrose: Promoter Oscar De La Hoya says Canelo Alvarez “will NEVER fight” David Benavidez because he’s too “talented” and “young.”

What’s sad about that is Canelo (58-2-2, 39 KOs) holds the undisputed super middleweight crown, while Benavidez is the WBC interim 168-lb champion and the mandatory for Alvarez’s belt with that sanctioning body.

Suppose Canelo chooses to keep his WBC 168-lb title. In that case, he will be required to defend against Benavidez at some point unless the World Boxing Council will make him the Franchise champion, which will allow the Mexican star to permanently swerve the young gun.

“Benavidez vs. Canelo: Canelo will never fight him. He’s too young and talented,” said Oscar De La Hoya on social media.

If Canelo does decide not ever to fight Benavidez (26-0, 23 KOs), he’s still going to need to fight other quality fighters for him to keep his popularity where it is now. He can’t fight many flawed guys like he’d been doing before he was schooled by Dmitry Bivol last May.

Benavidez, 25, is in a tough spot because he’s put in all that work to become Canelo’s mandatory and interim WBC 168-lb champion, yet there’s nothing he can do to force the fight.

Without the WBC ordering Canelo to fight Benavidez, there’s nothing he can do to make it happen.

Also, if the WBC does order Canelo to fight Benavidez, he can always vacate the belt as he did when the sanctioning body made Gennadiy Golovkin his mandatory back in 2016. That would be the worst nightmare for the WBC.

If you’re the WBC, you got to be worried about ordering the Canelo vs. Benavidez fight because if the Mexican star reacts angrily to that move, he could vacate his belt. Benavidez would scoop it up, obviously, but the WBC would be left with a much less popular champion.

It will be interesting to see how long it will take before the WBC finally orders Canelo to defend against Benavidez. I mean, they got to do it at some point because Benavidez has been WBC mandatory for Canelo’s belt for over a year, and he’s now the interim champion after beating David Lemieux last May.

Canelo recently revealed that he’s been fighting with a left-hand injury, and he intends on having surgery to repair the problem. The surgery could keep Canelo out of the ring until September 2023.