By Luke Furman

World Boxing Council President Mauricio Sulaiman says his organization's light heavyweight champion, Adonis Stevenson (27-1, 22KOs), is not at fault over a unification with WBO/IBF/WBA champion Sergey Kovalev falling apart.

Sulaiman explained that his organization was approached by Kovalev's promoter, Kathy Duva of Main Events, to have her fighter become the mandatory challenger.

Despite Kovalev being the world champion of three rival organizations, the WBC ;allowed Kovalev to leapfrog ahead of the fighters in the top ten and they approved his promoter's request to make him the mandatory challenger in late 2014.

The WBC ordered negotiations for the fight and then set down a purse bid date, but unexpectedly Main Events withdrew their fighter from the mandatory position, because they were concerned with losing the purse bid and Stevenson's side taking the fight to Showtime (Kovalev has a contract with HBO).

Stevenson's promoter, Yvon Michel of GYM, claims Duva used the situation to angle a new contractual agreement with HBO for her boxer.

"Adonis is not responsible for what is happening at light heavyweight," Sulaiman said to the Montreal Journal. "It's not his fault. We do know that he's ready to face anyone, including Sergey Kovalev. He demanded that fight, but Kovalev decided to go in another direction. We hope that fight will happen at some point."

Sulaiman says Stevenson will be allowed to make a voluntary defense but then he must contend with his mandatory challenger Eleider Alvarez in the coming months.

Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org