Cornelius Bundrage vs Cory Spinks Rematch Bought By Golden Boy, Likely For Guerrero-Aydin Show

The IBF-mandated rematch between junior middleweight titleholder Cornelius "K9" Bundrage and former titlist Cory Spinks is headed to the July 28 Showtime card headlined by Robert Guerrero's return to action, as Golden Boy Promotions pulled a surprise move and landed the fight with a high purse bid today, BoxingScene.com reports.

Golden Boy bid $211,000 for the fight. Don King was the only other bidder, at $51,000.

Bundrage (31-4, 18 KO) announced in February that he was a free agent, leaving promoter King in order to look for bigger fights. But the IBF junior middleweight title has long revolved around King's fighters, and Spinks is still with the veteran promoter.

The IBF, for reasons that defy any explanation other than it was a King fight, made an eliminator in January between Spinks and Sechew Powell, despite the fact that Bundrage had recently dominated both of them. Bundrage stopped Spinks in five, one-sided rounds to win the belt in August 2010, and beat Powell by wide decision last June.

That was the last time Bundrage would fight, as he and Pawel Wolak talked trash to end the year, but the bout never came to fruition. King's fighters have dominated the IBF version of the division for the better part of a decade, and it doesn't appear as though anyone's ready to let that go.

Spinks edged out a decision over Powell on January 28, giving him yet another shot at the title despite the fact that he's past his prime and considered by few to be a true contender anymore. Since winning the IBF belt from Roman Karmazin on July 8, 2006, Spinks has fought seven times: Two IBF title defenses, a fight with then-middleweight champion Jermain Taylor; (a fight that was supposed to go to Sergio Mora); a defense against and loss to Verno Phillips; a fight against Deandre Latimore (another King fighter at the time) for the vacant IBF belt; a defense against and bad loss to Bundrage; a comeback tune-up; and then the eliminator. If you count the next fight, that's seven of nine fights that involved the IBF junior middleweight title in some way, and it's not like he's had a long, dominant title run. He's 3-2 in IBF title fights at 154 pounds.

Anyway, Golden Boy has the fight, and Bundrage says he's a free agent. If Bundrage wins, it wouldn't be surprising to see Golden Boy sign him, or sign him to a short-term deal that comes with a fight against Canelo Alvarez later in the year. Alvarez needs opponents and Golden Boy doesn't really have anyone in-house for him, having now matched him with England's Ryan Rhodes, followed by Kermit Cintron and now Shane Mosley, both of whom are promotional free agents.