WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman has confirmed that Callum Smith is next in line to fight the winner of James DeGale’s world title bout with Badou Jack.

Smith is the mandatory challenger to WBC super-middleweight champion Jack, who will fight IBF title holder DeGale at the Barclays Center in New York on January 14.

Liverpudlian Smith will make the first defence of his British super-middleweight title against Luke Blackledge on the undercard of the Anthony Joshua-Eric Molina fight on December 10, and a victory should pave the way for a world title bout, according to Sulaiman.

The WBC president told World Boxing News: “I am happy to participate in this process of unification as fans deserve great fights.

I accept that working together with the other organisations works for us and I will be making every effort to make sure the best fights happen.

“We are very happy to have secured a positive response from Callum Smith, our mandatory super-middleweight contender, who was willing to accept having this unification bout as he will then fight the winner.”

Smith has won all 21 of his professional bouts to date, with 16 of those victories coming by knock-out, with his latest triumph coming against Hungarian Norbert Nemesapati in September.

The 26-year-old is the heavy favourite to preserve his 100 per cent winning record against Blackledge next month, as he is priced at 1.01 to win the fight, while his opponent is available at 17.00 and the draw is on offer at 26.00.