WBO orders Jamel Herring to face Lamont Roach Jr.

Newly crowned WBO super lightweight champion Jamel Herring has his first assignment: #1 contender Lamont Roach Jr., whom the sanctioning body has ordered him to begin negotiating with. As always, the two parties have 30 days to hash things out before going to a purse bid.

This time around, the minimum bid is $150,000.

Roach (19-0, 7 KO) looks to be taking the plunge after a recent shaky stretch. His two biggest bouts to date saw him fight Orlando Cruz to a split draw in 2017 and win a narrow decision over Jonathan Oquendo on the Canelo Alvarez-Rocky Fielding card. He’ll give up three inches of height and two inches of reach to Herring (20-2, 10 KO), who claimed the belt last month with an impressive victory over Masayuki Ito.

Roach is, on the other hand, a decade younger.

Bob Arum recently stated that he wanted Herring, a former U.S. Marine, to make his first defense on Veterans Day weekend (second weekend of November). That’d be a big wait, but it is thematically appropriate and I am a sucker for that sort of thing.