The WBA took the rare step of actually enforcing its own rules yesterday, ordering welterweight champion Rolando Romero to face mandatory challenger Shakhram Giyasov and featherweight titlist Nick Ball
to fight Brandon Figueroa.
If this all sounds way too legit to be the WBA you know and love, don’t worry; Mirco Cuello won an eliminator five months before Figueroa (26-2-1, 19 KO) did and they’re forcing him to sit at the kids’ table with a meaningless interim belt.
Romero (17-2, 13 KO) was set up as the designated victim to give Ryan Garcia a free welterweight title in May, but wound up dropping “Kingry” in the second and doing marginally less nothing over the next 10 rounds to walk away with the decision. This made him a prime target for the returning Manny Pacquiao, with most rumblings pointing to a January title clash, but it seems he’ll have to pay some step-aside money to make that happen.
Giyasov (17-0, 10 KO) has been the WBA mandatory for what feels like my entire adult life; he got the call to challenge Eimantas Stanionis for the belt last year, had to sit while Stanionis tried and failed to unify with Jaron Ennis, then saw an ordered shot at Ennis go up in smoke when “Boots” packed his bags and went to 154. I imagine he could make a tidy sum by agreeing to let Romero fight “Pac-Man,” but the prospect of beating Romero and yoinking the Pacquiao fight for himself has to be tempting.
Ball (23-0-1, 13 KO) had a pair of ultra-close bouts with Rey Vargas and Raymond Ford that seemed to turn him off of fighting featherweights entirely, leading to three consecutive defenses against career super bantamweights. The most recent of them saw him battle past Sam Goodman in August, which marked his third trip to Riyadh in five bouts.
Figueroa, for his part, looked tepid in a February loss to Stephen Fulton and was fortunate to get the nod against Joet Gonzalez five months later. If he comes out looking to slug, he and Ball could potentially put on a Fight of the Year, but cosplaying as a technician doesn’t appear to be working out for him.
