A title fight that was previously ordered and immediately rescinded is now back in play.

At least on paper.

BoxingScene.com has learned that the WBC has ordered a vacant super middleweight title fight between former undisputed super middleweight queen Franchon Crews-Dezurn a mandatory challenger Shadasia Green. The bout was put back on paper after the sanctioning body downgraded Savannah Marshall to ‘Champion in Recess’ due to an injury which prevented her from defending her crown.

Baltimore’s Crews-Dezurn (8-2, 2KOs) is represented in talks by Peter Kahn. Green (13-0, 11KOs) is signed to Most Valuable Promotions (MVP).

The two sides were briefly summoned to negotiate in April before the WBC immediately reversed course and instead allowed Crews-Dezurn to defend versus Marshall, with the winner to have faced Green. Marshall won their July 1 clash via unanimous decision to claim the undisputed 168-pound championship but never came around to negotiating the mandatory title fight.  

Marshall still holds the WBA, IBF and WBO titles. It is unclear whether her reported injury will affect her status with those sanctioning bodies.

Green became mandatory after her Feb. 4 sixth-round knockout of former unified titlist Elin Cederroos. The bout was her first under MVP, having since added to her resume a ten-round decision over iron-chinned Olivia Curry who became the first to extend Green the full ten-round distance on August 5 in Dallas.  

Crews-Dezurn won the WBC super middleweight title in a September 2013 majority decision over Marcela Cornejo. Their September 2019 rematch saw Crews-Dezurn win in more convincing fashion, which also came with the vacant WBO title at stake. She was originally due to face Mexico’s Alejandra Jimenez, who was injured and had to delay their fight by four months.

Jimenez initially claimed a split decision win in their rescheduled January 2020 clash, but the verdict was overturned after it was learned that she tested positive for the banned substance stanozolol. Crews-Dezurn waited out a lengthy review process with both the WBO and WBC before having her title reign fully restored.

Two fights later, Crews-Dezurn became undisputed champion following a lopsided win over the previously unbeaten Cederroos (8-2, 4KOs), who lost her IBF and WBA titles in their undisputed championship clash on the April 30 Katie Taylor-Amanda Serrano undercard at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The bout was the last to date for

Green was ringside both in support of Brooklyn’s Serrano (44-2-1, 30KOs)—MVP’s first signed boxer—and to scout the super middleweight fight with every intention of facing the winner.

She is once poised to face both, after going through Cederroos to land the top spot. Green was emphatic in her one-sided blitzing of Cederroos on the undercard of Serrano’s historic ten-round win over Mexico’s Erika Cruz in their historic undisputed featherweight championship clash.

The decision win over Curry snapped a nine-fight knockout streak for Green, a former standout high school and college basketball player from Patterson, New Jersey. The 33-year-old boxer has since emerged as the top super middleweight contender in the world.

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox