Andrew Cancio to face Manny Rojas July 16th on ESPN

Former super featherweight champion Andrew Cancio may finally make his Top Rank debut next month, as Mike Coppinger reports that “El Chango” has a “deal in place” to face Manny Rojas on a July 16th ESPN undercard. The bout, like all of Top Rank’s current planned events, would take place in Las Vegas.

Cancio (21-5-2, 16 KO) had one of the best 2019 starts in the sport and one of the worst endings, demolishing Alberto Machado in consecutive bouts to become a Cinderella story before getting mollywhopped by former victim Rene Alvarado. Golden Boy elected to release him afterwards in response to some mild criticism, leading Top Rank to pick him up and book him against Tyler McCreary on the April 25th Naoya Inoue-John Riel Casimero undercard.

Now training under Joe Goossen, he gets a softer touch in Rojas (18-4, 5 KO). The Dallas native won six straight over nobody of note after getting blown up by Andy Vences, setting up a January clash with Felix Verdejo. He didn’t roll over for the former prospect, but still ended up losing wide.

No word yet as to what bout would headline. The farthest-flung date with a known main event at this point is the planned July 7th Ivan Baranchyk-Jose Zepeda bout.