World Boxing Council (WBC) President Mauricio Sulaiman recently discussed why his organization is not barring their light heavyweight world champion, Artur Beterbiev, from moving forward with a planned summer unification with WBO champion Joe Smith at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Beterbiev also holds the IBF's world title.

Sulaiman explains that Beterbiev is set to fight as a Canadian after several sanctioning bodies barred Russian boxers from being involved in title fights following the invasion of Ukraine.

"We will not sanction any fights in Russia and no Russian citizens will fight for our organization titles," Sulaiman told Reuters.

"He has been in Canada for 15 years, he lives in Canada, his children were born in Canada, he has a Canadian passport and Canadian residency and a boxing license from Canada. So the WBC board is evaluating that specific case as we speak. We believe in what the world is doing but we also have to look at specific cases and make justice prevail."

Sulaiman also stated that his organization's bridgerweight mandatory challenger, Evgeny Romanov, has been ruled out of a title fight but would keep his status.

"We have several (Russian) silver champions in the WBC and they cannot defend their title. They are going to be put in recess," Sulaiman added.

While the WBA is also on board with similar policies while the war against Ukraine is ongoing, they approved WBA light heavyweight champion Dmitry Bivol to make a voluntary defense against Mexican superstar Canelo Alvarez on May 7 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.