BBBofC orders litany of title fights

The suite of British champions have their marching orders. The British Boxing Board of Control has ordered a swath of fights to purse bids and confirmed a few pre-existing title bouts.

The bids will take place on December 12th, assuming nobody vacates or gets an exception. Which someone almost certainly will.

Up at heavyweight, champion Hughie Fury must face Olympian Joe Joyce. Fury recently lost a decision to Kubrat Pulev in the latter’s native Bulgaria, while Joyce is set to fight Joe Hanks on December 1st as part of the Wilder-Fury undercard. Meanwhile, unbeatens Daniel Dubois and Nathan Gorman have been ordered to go at it for the English belt.

Light heavyweight sees champ Callum Johnson ordered to fight prospect Joshua Buatsi. Johnson came up short against Artur Beterbiev last time out, while Buatsi fought five times in 2018 against marginal opposition.

Middleweight is already set: Mark Heffron against late replacement Liam Williams for the vacant title on the December 22nd Warrington-Frampton card. Likewise for featherweight, as Reece Bellotti will challenge champion Ryan Walsh for the belt on Whyte-Chisora II, and super bantamweight, which will see Jazza Dickens fight Brad Foster next month.

Finally, Andrew Selby has been ordered to defend his flyweight belt for the first time since 2016 against Paddy Barnes. Selby is the WBC mandatory and has already beaten champion Cristofer Rosales, who took Barnes behind the woodshed in August, so I’d imagine this isn’t his first choice of action.