Team Cuello Discuss The WBC Title Shot Situation

by Dennis "dSource" Guillermo

WBC Silver minimumweight champion, Denver "The Excitement" Cuello, was supposed to fight the winner of the WBC minimumweight title fight in China on Oct. 27th between Xiong Zhao Zong and Javier Martinez. Cuello was actually supposed to fight for the title at that point in time, if it weren't for the WBC's requests for him to step aside to allow them the opportunity to tap into the Chinese market.

But this past week, Cuello's manager/ promoter Aljoe Jaro threatened to file a lawsuit against the WBC for planning to again screw his fighter of an opportunity to fight for their minimumweight world title against Zhong, who defeated Martinez by decision.

I recently caught up with Jaro for an exclusive interview, to get his first-hand statement on what transpired. Read Jaro's response below:

“Bro, it really sucked out the life from me. If I knew that was going to happen, I wouldn’t have gone to the (WBC) convention in Cancun. I was there to show my support and loyalty to the WBC. We were already done with the mandatory talks. We already took care of our mandatory a long time ago.

We (Denver Cuello) agreed to step aside, because of Don Jose’s (Sulaiman) incessant requests to help him out, because it was his final term as the President of the WBC, which is why he wanted a big story for boxing and make history in China by having their first world champion.

By asking us to step aside, he was able to make history in China with the WBC hailing the first-ever Chinese boxing world champion. He thanked me repeatedly for agreeing to step aside and allowing for his vision to materialize, and our agreement was that Denver would fight whoever wins that fight. All talks have been settled. All we had to do was prepare and be ready after 90 days from the day of the Chinese champion’s win.

Then all of a sudden, at the WBC convention, things changed. Now they are saying, I wasn’t present during the meetings for the mandatory fight, because I had already gone to Las Vegas to watch the Manny Pacquiao-Juan Manuel Marquez fight.

It’s laughable bro. All the talks and negotiations are supposed to be done with. I didn’t even have to go to Cancun, but I still did, just to show my support. It’s truly sad that they do not want to honor our agreement.

I will wait until January for their announcement. Maybe they’ll come around and realize that what they are trying to do is wrong. We will file a lawsuit. Denver has been waiting for two years, and they have deprived him of his rightful opportunity to fight for a title and steered their title away from us. We have to make a move."

Note: Translated from tagalog.