According to World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman, his organization is investigating the ongoing situation with WBC light heavyweight champion Adonis Stevenson and his lack of mandatory defenses.

At the moment, Eleider Alvarez has been the mandatory challenger, for two years, to Stevenson's title.

Stevenson (29-1, 24 KOs) and Alvarez (23-0, 11 KOs) are both advised by Al Haymon and promoted by Yvon Michel of GYM - but for one reason or another a deal has never come together for them to fight each other.

Alvarez has been the mandatory challenger to Stevenson since his victory over Isaac Chilemba in November 2015 in Quebec City. The champion has not faced a mandatory challenger since he knocked out Tony Bellew in November 2013 in Quebec City. He has made six defenses of his title since.

Because of the circumstances, the WBC has taken a lot of heat from the media and fans, and Sulaiman has finally responded to the criticism.

"We are addressing this matter. It's not 4 years [since Stevenson made a mandatory] and Kovalev hurt the process as well but it's unacceptable to continue. WBC is ruling soon," stated Sulaiman.

Regarding Sulaiman's reference to Sergey Kovalev - several years ago the WBC made a very strange ruling where they ordered Stevenson to fight Kovalev - who at the time was the rival champion of three other sanctioning bodies [WBO, WBA, IBF].

Besides allowing a rival champion to skip everyone in their own top ten, the situation created by the WBC was nothing more than a waste of time as the teams for Kovalev and Stevenson were never able to reach an agreement.

When the WBC ordered a purse bid, Kovalev's side - who pushed to become Stevenson's mandatory - withdrew from the process over concerns that Stevenson's team would win and take the fight to Showtime - which was a big issue with Kovalev, who at the time was negotiating a new exclusive deal with rival network HBO.

BoxingScene.com reported a few days ago, that Alvarez actually accepted a step-aside deal to allow Stevenson to make another voluntary defense in the first quarter of 2018 - which some believe will come against Badou Jack.

Stevenson has often stated in interviews that Alvarez brought little to the table, but he's very motivated to fight someone like Jack - who vacated the WBA "regular" title at 175-pounds to target a Stevenson showdown.

For stepping aside, Alvarez has been offered a deal from GYM, that gives him a multi-fight agreement with six-figure guarantee per fight and Stevenson is also part of that package.

But the WBC appears to take issue with this situation, because there have been numerous step-aside deals, and numerous orders to fight Alvarez, and the other ranked fighters under the WBC are becoming irritated over a scenario where everyone ranked under Alvarez continue to wait with no title shot openings in sight and some are abandoning the WBC to pursue light heavyweight title opportunities in the other sanctioning bodies.