WBC, Evander Holyfield announce seeding for welterweight tournament

The brackets for the upcoming “Jose Sulaiman World Invitational,” voted on by the fans, were revealed today at a press conference in Louisville. The matchups are as follows:

#1 Felix Diaz vs. #8 Derrieck Cuevas
#2 Chris Van Heerden vs. #7 Timo Schwarzkopf
#3 Fredrick Lawson vs. #6 Baishanbo Nasiywula
#4 Radzhab Butaev vs. #5 Brad Solomon

The fans also selected Francisco Santana and Paddy Gallagher from among the four possible alternates. Fingers crossed we don’t get three injuries. The first round goes down on April 27th at the KFC Yum! Center. Yes, the exclamation point is part of the name.

The rankings look about right to me; Diaz was always going to be the favorite, and while Van Heerden and Lawson have stumbled against the elite, Butaev isn’t sufficiently proven to warrant a spot above them. Anyone picking an upset, or are we going to have a Diaz-Van Heerden final?