Less than a month after convincing the WBO to make him the mandatory challenger to Matt Korobov for the WBO's vacant middleweight belt, WBO junior middleweight titlist Demetrius Andrade has done an about-face and decided to continue fighting in the junior middleweight division.
Andrade (21-0, 14 KOs), who beat Vanes Martirosyan to win the vacant WBO junior middleweight belt last November and has defend it once since, hasn't announced a next opponent or when he plans on fighting again.
Andrade's change of heart reopens the door for the WBO's number two-ranked middleweight, Billy Joe Saunders (20-0, 11 KOs) to fight number one-ranked middleweight Matt Korobov (24-0, 14 KOs) for the title that was vacated by Peter Quillin. Korobov-Saunders was being negotiated before the WBO deemed Andrade a more worthy challenger because Saunders hadn't fought a top ranked fighter in over a year.
Korobov's promoter, Top Rank, is aiming to pair Korobov-Saunders up with Fury-Chisora 2 on November 29.