Earlier this year, Ryan Garcia captured the WBC's interim-lightweight title with a dramatic knockout of Olympic gold medal winner Luke Campbell.

Next up for Garcia was a showdown with top-rated Javier Fortuna in the month of July. The winner of that bout would have been guaranteed a crack at the full world title.

A few weeks ago, Garcia withdrew from the contest after publicly revealing that he needed to take a leave in order to deal with mental health issues.

Fortuna (36-2-1, 25 KOs) went in another direction - and is now scheduled to face Joseph Diaz (31-1-1, 15 KOs) in a battle of former champions on July 9 in Los Angeles, California.

The World Boxing Council received a request to sanction their fight for the WBC's interim-title - in light of Garcia's recent decision to step away from boxing for an undetermined period of time.

Based on the recent events, the WBC made an internal decision to sanction Fortuna-Diaz for the interim-title.

Further to that decision, the WBC has issued an order that solidifies the winner of that contest as the mandatory challenger to the winner of this weekend's fight between WBC champion Devin Haney and challenger Jorge Linares, which takes place in Las Vegas.

The WBC's 'Franchise' champion at 135-pounds is Teofimo Lopez, who defends his titles against George Kambosos on June 19th.