WBSS to announce matchups on July 20th in Moscow

The World Boxing Super Series will announce the full rosters and quarterfinal matchups of their bantamweight and super lightweight tournaments on July 20th in Moscow, Russia. This will not include the third tournament, the weight class of which has yet to be announced.

With the recent addition of Naoya Inoue, the bantamweight field needs just one more fighter to be complete, currently featuring:

Naoya Inoue
Emmanuel Rodriguez
Ryan Burnett
Zolani Tete
Jason Moloney
Nonito Donaire
Juan Carlos Payano

The only known matchup is Rodriguez against his mandatory, Moloney. Payano is Tete’s top contender, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see that fight in the quarters.

As far as the super lightweights, the current roster includes:

Ivan Baranchyk
Anthony Yigit
Kiryl Relikh
Eduard Troyanovsky
Ryan Martin
Josh Taylor
The winner of this Saturday’s fight between Regis Prograis and Juan Jose Velasco

Maurice Hooker, who was expected to participate, instead elected to fight mandatory challenger Alex Saucedo.

Baranchyk and Yigit are set to fight for the vacant IBF belt and the WBA ordered Relikh to defend against Troyanovsky a few months back, so that’s two matchups figured out. I’d imagine the organizers would want to keep Prograis and Taylor away from each other to set up a hype final, but then again, boxing doesn’t take kindly to letting things marinate.