IBF title: On Saturday November 4th, Joe Cordina of Wales is scheduled to defend his IBF 130-pound title against Edward Vazquez of Fort Worth, Texas. Vazquez has four straight wins since losing to featherweight Raymond Ford. Meanwhile, contenders Eduardo Nunez and Zelfa Barrett have been ordered to begin negotiations for an IBF "box off." Barrett, from the United Kingdom, is 29-2. He lost a competitive 2022 challenge for the IBF title to Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov. Cordina then defeated Rakhimov and is now the reigning IBF title holder. Nunez, form Mexico, is 24-1. His lone loss came early in his career, and though he has never fought outside of Mexico, he has stepped up his level of competition lately. 

 

WBC title / Sept. 7, 2023: Matchroom's principal Eddie Hearn has announced a world title fight for Cancun, Mexico on October 28th. Hearn says O'Shaquie Foster will defend the WBC 130-pound title against Mexico's Eduardo "Rocky" Hernandez on a DAZN broadcast. From Texas, Foster is 20-2 and won the vacant title against Rey Vargas in February. Hernandez is 34-1 with six wins in a row since a 2019 loss to Roger Gutierrez (who went on to win a WBA title). 

 

WBO title / Aug. 12, 2023: Emanuel Navarrete defeated former two-division champion Oscar Valdez in a classic Mexican war held in Glendale, Arizona. Navarrete, a three-division champion, retained the WBO super featherweight championship by unanimous decision. The official scores were 116-112, 118-110 and 119-109. Navarrete threw 1038 punches according to Compubox, outlanding Valdez 216-140. Valdez finished with swelling plus a deep bruise under his right eye. 

 

WBA title / Aug. 10, 2023: Otar Eranosyan maintained his spotless professional record, defeating former title holder Roger Gutierrez in a WBA super featherweight elimination bout at the Whitesands Events Center, in Plant City, Florida. From the Republic of Georgia but now fighting out of Florida, Eranosyan won by technical knockout in the eighth round. In the eighth round, Eranosyan showed total dominance. Gutierrez began the round bleeding from his right eyebrow and from then on, he had no answer. Eranosyan delivered punches at will and Gutierrez was unable to respond, to the point that the bell saved him from what seemed an imminent trip to the canvas. Before the ninth round started, referee Christopher Young decided to stop the fight. At the time of the stoppage, the scorecards read  77-72 and 78-71 (twice) for Eranosyan, who is now 14-0 and the mandatory contender for Hector Luis Garcia.

 

WBC title / Feb. 12, 2023: With the words “ice water” and “shock the world” etched on his trunks, O’Shaquie Foster produced the fight of his life, coolly and methodically outboxing two-division champion Rey Vargas to capture the vacant WBC junior lightweight championship in his first title shot at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. Foster, who normally switches to southpaw in his fights, fought orthodox for the entire twelve rounds with the objective of befuddling Vargas. He won by scores of 116-112, 117-111 and 119-109 in a dominant, albeit very competitive win. “I can’t put it into words (what this means),” Foster said in the ring afterward. “I know my mom, my uncle, my grandpa, they are all looking down on me.” Vargas was returning to the Alamodome after winning the WBC featherweight championship in his last bout with a decision victory over Mark Magsayo at the same venue last July. He still holds that title, so a return to 126 pounds may be in the cards for Vargas.

 

WBO title / Feb. 4, 2023: In Glendale, Arizona, Mexico's Emanuel Navarrete (37-1) survived a knockdown and stopped Australia's Liam Wilson (11-2) in a thriller to earn the vacant WBO 130-pound championship. By claiming the title recently vacated by Shakur Stevenson, Navarrete become a three-division champion. Though Wilson lost, he established himself as a skillful and exciting boxer, and earned a return invitiation to the world stage. In round four, Navarrete was knocked down for the first time in his career. As Navarrete lunged forward with a punch, Wilson caught him with a combination that floored and hurt Navarrete. Luckily for him, Navarrete got critical extra seconds of recovery time as his mouth piece needed to be replaced, and Navarrete struggled to put in correctly. Round seven saw Navarrete swing the momentum his way, as blood began to flow freely from Wilson's nose. In round eight, Wilson appeared to be fighting the wrong kind of fight, looking for one big shot while Navarrete landed multiple blows upstairs and downstairs. Navarrete's body work paid off in round nine, as he knocked down Wilson in the first minute with a one-two combination. Wilson got up, but was clearly drained. He absorbed a lot of hard punches, stumbled badly in the middle of the ring, and seemed unable to tie up Navarrete up. When Navarrete trapped Wilson against the rope and began raining in punches, the referee had no choice but to stop the bout.

 

WBA title / Aug. 21, 2022: Hector Luis Garcia of the Dominican Republic dethroned Roger Gutierrez for the WBA 130-pound championship. From San Juan de la Maguana, Garcia (16-0) proved that his dominant win against Chris Colbert in February wasn’t a fluke. Garcia, a former Olympian, dictated the action and survived a late rally to wrest the WBA title from Gutierrez via unanimous decision. Scores were 117-111 (twice) and 118-110.