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Korobov-Saunders likely to land on rescheduled Fury-Chisora card

Bob Arum says he's been in touch with Saunder's promoter Frank Warren about putting the fight on the November 22nd card at the ExCel Arena in London.

Billy Joe Saunders (L) and Frank Warren
Billy Joe Saunders (L) and Frank Warren
Jordan Mansfield

In a surprising turn of events last week, we saw Peter Quillin turn down a fight with Matt Korobov and relinquish his belt. Now it appears we'll see Korobov fight for the vacant middleweight belt against British challenger Billy Joe Saunders.

Bob Arum told RingTV.com that he's been talking with Frank Warren about the fight and they're looking at putting it on the undercard of the rescheduled heavyweight clash between Tyson Fury and Dereck Chisora. That rematch is scheduled for November 22nd at the ExCel Arena in London and should do good numbers. Chisora will look to avenge a 2011 points loss.

Matt Korobov is the WBO's #1 contender and Saunders is #2, but the fight will still require the commission's blessing for the vacant belt to be on the line. When reached for comment, however, an assistant to WBO president Paco Valcarcel gave a nauseatingly mealy-mouthed answer which I'll provide here in its entirety so that you can share my nausea:

"I heard about that this morning but I can’t confirm anything yet because the World Championship Committee needs to convene and make its determination and that should come shortly. I’m actually sitting here with the chairman of the World Championship Committee, Luis Bautista, and we’re waiting for Paco," said Izquierdo, general secretary of the WBO.

"We’ll discuss how we’re going to go about this but there is nothing confirmed from our end yet. We’ll obviously use the best classified contender criteria and that gives us a bit of latitude. It all depends on who is available as per our rules. We’ll see what we have and what the options are and chairman Bautista will make his determination with his committee and then we’ll inform but we need to check on those details before we can give a more educated response."

"World Championship Committee." "Classified contender criteria." Ugh.

I won't hold my breath for a "more educated response."

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