WBC orders Andre Berto-Selcuk Aydin

The World Boxing Council has ordered welterweight titlist Andre Berto to defend his belt against Selcuk Aydin, who holds their interim belt, with negotiations between DiBella Entertainment and Arena Box to be open until September 17. After that, the fight would go to a purse bid.

Berto (26-0, 20 KO) won the vacant WBC belt in June 2008 against Miki Rodriguez, after Floyd Mayweather Jr. gave up the belt for one of his "retirements." He has made four successful defenses, against Steve Forbes, Luis Collazo, Juan Urango and Carlos Quintana. He is currently targeting an October 2 ring return, with Andriy Kotelnik as his rumored opponent for that date.

Aydin (20-0, 15 KO) is coming off of a controversial win in June over Ionut Dan Ion (aka Jo-Jo Dan). Both that fight and his previous win over Jackson Osei Bonsu were fought in Turkey, where Aydin was born. He is based out of Germany now, where he's fought most of his career. He did come to the U.S. in April 2009 for a ShoBox fight against Said Ouali, which was one of the chippier and more aggressive fights in recent memory.

Aydin says he's been waiting to face Berto for over a year. Berto and DiBella really have very few options, as we've discussed before. The welterweight division is very weak, no matter what HBO tries to sell you, with most of the top ten based in Europe and with no American name value whatsoever. Aydin is a borderline top ten guy himself, but at least he fights aggressively and likely would make for a good, entertaining bout, and one that Berto would be favored to win. It's not like it's getting in the way of some big money fight or anything. Despite HBO's push of Berto and DiBella's solid job promoting him, he's not a star yet. Fighting Aydin makes as much sense as anything he can do.