David Benavidez is the mandatory challenger, twice over, for Dmitry Bivol.

That is thanks to the interim WBC light heavyweight title Benavidez picked up when he defeated Oleksandr Gvozdyk last June and the secondary WBA “regular” belt Benavidez won with his decision over David Morrell in February.

Bivol has all four world titles by virtue of his rematch victory against Artur Beterbiev on February 22, three weeks after Benavidez-Morrell. But if Bivol wants to remain undisputed, then he’ll need to face Benavidez. That’s the position of Benavidez’s promoter, Sampson Lewkowicz.

“This is the only fight that we like. There’s no other fight,” Lewkowicz said in an interview with BoxingScene’s Tris Dixon.

There are two other light heavyweights in line for Bivol’s belts: Michael Eifert (the IBF’s mandatory challenger) and Callum Smith (who won the interim WBO belt from Joshua Buatsi on the Beterbiev-Bivol II undercard).

“Now everybody is talking about Callum Smith. It could happen only for the WBC full title, not for any other thing,” Lewkowicz said. “There’s no more interim championship for Benavidez. He never took a step-aside [payment], and you can send a message to everyone that it will never happen without the full title of the WBC.”

The WBC has ordered Bivol-Benavidez and given their camps a deadline of April 8 to reach an agreement, or else the bout will go to a purse bid.

Lewkowicz said they received an offer from Riyadh Season – which has provided the financial backing for the Bivol-Beterbiev bouts and many other major fights – to face another opponent. Lewkowicz declined to say what fighter that was but described the offer as “good money.”

They’re not interested, however.

“The loyalty for us is [with] the WBC at this point,” Lewkowicz said. He soon added: “We don’t need the money and we [will] not kiss any ring.”

Team Benavidez is seeking to avoid a repeat of the situation they had while at super middleweight, when the undefeated Arizonan was the WBC’s mandatory challenger for Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, but Canelo refused to face Benavidez and the WBC declined to enforce Benavidez’s position.

“This time there’s no more,” Lewkowicz said. “It [will] never happen again.”

David Greisman, who has covered boxing since 2004, is on Twitter @FightingWords2. David’s book, “Fighting Words: The Heart and Heartbreak of Boxing,” is available on Amazon.