Mike CoppingerESPN
A title combat between Artur Beterbiev, the unified mild heavyweight champion, and Marcus Browne has been ordered, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman informed ESPN on Thursday.
The deadline to achieve a deal and keep away from a handbag bid is Sept. 17, Sulaiman mentioned. Prime Rank promotes Beterbiev, whereas Browne is aligned with PBC. The organizations hardly ever conduct enterprise with one another, the Oct. 9 Tyson Fury-Deontay Wilder trilogy combat being an exception.
Terence Crawford-Shawn Porter, one other potential bout pitting Prime Rank vs. PBC, is heading towards a handbag bid that will likely be ordered Friday, sources mentioned.
Beterbiev (16-0, 16 KOs) is ESPN’s No. 1 boxer at 175 kilos. The 36-year-old has scored knockouts in all of his professional fights, most notably a Tenth-round stoppage of Oleksandr Gvozdyk in October 2019 to unify titles.
Combating out of Montreal, Beterbiev is commonly acknowledged as probably the greatest pound-for-pound boxers on this planet. Nonetheless, inactivity has stunted his momentum. His first bout for the reason that Gvozdyk victory was a March stoppage of Adam Deines.
The combat towards Browne pits top-10 mild heavyweights but in addition fellow Olympians. Beterbiev represented Russia on the 2008 Video games and didn’t medal. Browne, a local of Staten Island, New York, competed within the 2012 Video games.
Browne (24-1, 16 KOs) has by no means challenged for a title. In 2018, the 30-year-old agreed to combat one other mild heavyweight champion from Russia, Sergey Kovalev, however the bout fell aside earlier than contracts had been signed.
“That is the second I have been working for my whole profession; that is a very powerful combat of my life,” Browne informed ESPN. “I am coming with all of the instruments within the software field; not leaving with out these straps.”
His career-best victory got here in January 2019, a call win over former champion Badou Jack. Browne by no means constructed on the win, although. He was upset in his subsequent combat, a technical-decision loss to Jean Pascal. Browne suffered three knockdowns towards the ex-champion. Pascal examined constructive for 4 totally different banned substances forward of a scheduled rematch with Jack this yr.
“A lot of the different guys go within the ring scared to combat [Beterbiev],” mentioned Browne, ESPN’s No. 10 mild heavyweight. “They’ve misplaced earlier than the bell rings. That is not how we’re coming.”
Leave a Reply