Montreal promoter Interbox won a purse bid for a title eliminator between Sakio Bika and Jesse Brinkley. Brinkley recently defeated Curtis Stevens to win the #2 position in the IBF's super middleweight rankings. Bika has kept a relatively low profile since obliterating Peter Manfredo, waiting for a big fight that never came. He had been scheduled to face Allan Green for the right to fight in the Super Six, but he pulled out for unspecified reasons. The winner will be the mandatory to fight Lucian Bute.
Interbox has also arranged another fight, likely to be on the same card, with IBF super middleweight implications. Librado Andrade will fight former titlist Eric Lucas, who has recently started a comeback. This could be an exciting fight between two relatively crude fighters who have been able to make the most of their careers by having a ton of heart. In addition, it has the side effect of getting Andrade back in front of the Montreal crowds, where he has started to develop a good fan base, against one of Montreal's favorite boxing sons. It seems relatively likely that this is a set up for a match up between Andrade and Adrian Diaconu somewhere down the line.
Elsewhere, Russian promoter Bash Boxing surprisingly won the purse bid for the title fight between Roman Karmazin and IBF middleweight titlist Sebastian Sylvester, meaning that bout will take place in Russia. The fight will likely be in St. Petersburg on June 5. Karmazin knocked out Dionisio Miranda in a fight where it looked like he had run out of gas to earn the title shot. This will be Sylvester's first fight outside of Germany.