William Scull has his first good title fight in his sights.
The undefeated fighter was ordered to negotiate with Vladimir Shishkin for the vacant IBF super middleweight belt. Scull-Shishkin was formally ordered on July 29, with a 30-day negotiation period allotted for the process.
Scull is represented by AGON Sports. Shishkin is signed to Salita Promotions.
The winner will claim the title removed from RING and 168-pound unified champion Saul 'Canelo' Alvarez (61-2-2, 39 knockouts). Appropriately, the promotion came as Alvarez announced his championship defense against WBA titleholder Edgar Berlanga (22-0, 17 KOs). Their fight will take place on September 14 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
It's highly doubtful that Scull (22-0, 9 KOs) and Shishkin (16-0, 10 KOs) will have a fight day by then. What they both have now is a clearer path to the title than a few months ago.
Scull became a mandatory challenger after winning the July 2022 points against Evgeny Shvedenko. The title decider between the undefeated competitors saw Scull—a Berlin-based Cuban exporter—win by unanimous decision.
This 31-year-old player has only three fights. The latest was an eight-round victory over Sean Hemphill on May 4 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. The fight took place in the untelevised basement of Alvarez-Munguia.
Alvarez-Scull was ordered by the IBF after nine days. A fund bid hearing was ordered but Alvarez's side repeatedly delayed the process. The session was completely canceled when Alvarez and TGB Promotions alleged that a deal had been reached.
That request no longer held water if they failed to provide the necessary evidence to the IBF. Alvarez instead declared his RING, WBC, WBA and WBO titles against Berlanga.
Shishkin was the best candidate available and agreed to commit at least to the negotiation process.
The undefeated Russian—who trains in Florida and is fighting out of the greater Detroit area—has been in the hunt for more than 18 months. He defeated former title contender Jose Uzcategui to clinch the Dec. 2022.
Only two fights followed Shishkin, most recently a March 24 win over Mike Guy in Detroit.
Shishkin rated No. 5 of 168 is A ring. Scull just moved right into the No. 10 spot.
In the order of the title fight, both boxers are obliged to respect this decision. IBF Rule 9.C states that any boxer who withdraws from the trial “shall be reduced to below 10 for at least six (6) months.” In addition, no participant can enter into an agreement for another war during the allotted period.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for The Ring and vice president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,’script’,
‘
fbq(‘init’, ‘161022561146884’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
(function(d, s, id) {
var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];
if (d.getElementById(id)) return;
js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id;
js.src = “//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.10&appId=128026463954740”;
fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);
}(document, ‘script’, ‘facebook-jssdk’));
Source link
