Though he missed out on a big-money showdown with Vergil Ortiz Jr, WBO super welterweight champion Xander Zayas still has his sights set high. Lance Pugmire reports that Zayas is pushing Top Rank to set up a unification bout with WBA titlist Abass Baraou for the former’s inaugural defense in Puerto Rico.
This doesn’t seem to be idle talk, either; per Pugmire, Zayas (22-0, 13 KO) turned down a softer touch in career welterweight Giovanni Santillan for his homecoming, which is slated for this coming January.
Top Rank “expects to offer the bout to Baraou and see what transpires.”
The 23-year-old is coming off a two-win 2025 campaign that saw him knock out unbeaten German Siawa Spomer in February before outclassing Mexican slugger Jorge Garcia Perez the following July to claim the WBO title Sebastian Fundora previously jettisoned.
Baraou (17-1, 9 KO) lacks the profile of division menaces like Ortiz or Jaron Ennis, but he would be Zayas’ strongest foe to date by a considerable margin. After a long stretch of treading water on the European scene, he finally got the breakout win he’d been looking for by upsetting top prospect Yoenis Tellez in August for the interim belt.
That got upgraded to the full belt over the weekend when the WBA finally wised up to the fact that Terence Crawford is never coming back to 154.
This seems like a very makeable matchup; Baraou proved his willingness to fight on another promoter’s show against a high-risk opponent when he took on MVP’s Tellez. Hopefully there’s a real effort to put this one together.
