By Miguel Rivera

Mauricio Sulaiman, President of the World Boxing Council, is going to order a championship fight for the interim-WBC welterweight world title.

Sulaiman told ESPN Deportes that he's going to order the fight because the current champion Keith Thurman is unlikely to return to the ring until the early part of 2018.

Thurman, who also owns the WBA world title, captured the WBC belt in March with a twelve round decision over Danny Garcia.

Thurman, who recently got married, suffered a bad elbow injury and has undergone surgery. He was planning to return to the ring by the end of the year. However, a few days ago it was revealed that Thurman would not be ready to fight until the first quarter of 2018.

Sulaiman indicated that they are looking for the best ranked fighters, who are ready and available, to order the match. The WBC will likely order the two highest ranked fighters to collide, and if either on them refuse then the sanctioning body will go down the list to the next available contender.

Currently, the WBC's number one ranked fighter is Shawn Porter (27-2-1, 17 KOs) and Danny Garcia (33-1, 19 KOs) is sitting in the number two slot.

Both boxers are advised by Al Haymon and fight under the Premier Boxing Champions banner.

As far as the rest of the top five, Manny Pacquiao is sitting at number three, Jessie Vargas is at number four, and Konstantin Ponomarev is at number five.

Garcia has been out of the ring since losing the decision to Thurman, but plans to fight again before the year is out. Porter picked up a big victory in April when he stopped Andre Berto in a WBC final eliminator. It was Porter's first victory since losing a twelve round decision to Thurman in a wild war last June.