William Scull has done his part to speed up the process for his first career title fight.

The Ring has confirmed that a June 6 purse bid was scheduled for Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez’s IBF mandatory title defense versus Scull. The fight was ordered on May 13 but the negotiation period was brought to a halt after just nine days.

According an official letter obtained by The Ring, AGON Sports & Events—Scull’s promoter—informed the IBF of the failed talks between camps. As such, an immediate hearing was requested on behalf of the unbeaten contender. IBF rules state that either party can call for a purse bid at any time during negotiations.

Per IBF Rule 10.E, the winning bid will be split 65-35 in favor of Alvarez as the defending champ.

The only question is whether the fight will actually move forward—for a variety of reasons.

Alvarez (60-2-2, 39 knockouts), The Ring champion at 168, has yet to make a mandatory defense for the WBA or IBF titles. He was actually the mandatory as the secondary WBA titleholder when he faced and defeated Callum Smith in their Dec. 2020 WBA title consolidation bout.

One month later, Caleb Plant (22-2, 13 KOs) honored his IBF mandatory title defense in a Jan. 2021 win over Caleb Truax.

Alvarez defeated Plant via eleventh-round knockout in their Nov. 2021 undisputed showdown in Las Vegas.

Brooklyn’s Edgar Berlanga (22-0, 17 KOs) was named the WBA mandatory challenger in April. It was believed that the Nuyorican would be next in line for the 168-pound crown. Those rumors intensified after Alvarez’s May 4 win over Jaime Munguia at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

That will be an argument for the WBA and IBF to sort out.

One matter to consider is whether a secondary title defense satisfies the terms of a WBA mandatory. One was made in Nov. 2022, when David Morrell defended his WBA ‘Regular’ title in a twelfth-round stoppage of Aidos Yerbossynuly (16-1, 11 KOs).

That could factor into the rotation system that is in place for unified titlists. If so, then the IBF would be up next which would leave the purse bid hearing intact.

Morrell, No. 4 at 168, will next face Radivoje Kalajdzic for the interim WBA 175-pound title on August 3 in Los Angeles. Berlanga was since named WBA mandatory as a result.

The call came roughly two months after his sixth-round knockout of unbeaten Padraig McCrory on Feb. 24 in Orlando, Florida. At the time, the fight was to determine the next ordered challenger for Morrell’s secondary title.

A ruling in favor of the IBF would leave Alvarez with an interesting choice to make regarding his unified reign. He has made the most successful defenses among any male undisputed champion in the four-belt era (four). That feat came in large part to the sanctioning bodies generally not enforcing their rules as they have with its other champions.

Scull (22-0, 9 KOs) became the mandatory challenger after a July 2022 points win over Evgeny Shvedenko. The title eliminator between unbeaten contenders saw Scull—a Cuban export based in Berlin—win a lopsided unanimous decision.

Just three fights have followed for the 31-year-old. The most recent came in an eight-round victory over Sean Hemphill on May 4 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The fight took place on the non-televised undercard portion of Alvarez-Munguia.

Also on site was Berlanga, The Ring’s No. 10 super middleweight contender who was on the short list of opponents to face Alvarez in May. His name was in the running along with Munguia, who ultimately won the sweepstakes.

Berlanga could still land the assignment—whether as the next mandatory in rotation, or without the IBF belt at stake.

Alvarez could very well still fight the next opponent of his choosing. It would just result in his being stripped of the IBF title, absent a ruling favoring the WBA.

IBF rule 5.c requires its champions to honor ordered mandatory title fights. Failure to honor the order “will be sufficient cause to have the Championships Committee and Board of Directors consider withdrawing recognition of the title.”

This is familiar territory for Alvarez, whose last experience with an IBF mandatory changed the course of his career.

An ordered middleweight title defense versus Sergiy Derevyanchenko ended with Alvarez being stripped of the belt in 2019. The handling of the matter soured the decade-long relationship between Alvarez and Golden Boy Promotions; the two split in 2020.

Alvarez defeated Daniel Jacobs in their May 2019 RING, WBC, WBA and IBF unification bout. An order immediately followed to next defend versus Derevyanchenko. The matter extended deep into that summer the IBF declared the title vacant.

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for The Ring and vice president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.

Follow @JakeNDaBox

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