Sergey Lipinets vs Kudratillo Abdukakhorov now targeted for late September

The solid welterweight showdown between IBF #3 Sergey Lipinets and #1 Kudratillo Abdukakhorov originally slated for May 16th will now take place in “late September” according to Lipinets manager Alex Vaysfield. As before, the fight will be for the interim IBF title, with the expectation that the winner then faces the winner of Errol Spence’s expected return against Danny Garcia.

Lipinets (16-1, 12 KO), a former champion at 140 with solid wins over Levan Ghvamichava, Leonardo Zappavigna, and Akihiro Kondo, moved up to welterweight after a competitive loss to Mikey Garcia. Though he initially stumbled out of the gate, barely scraping past Erick Bone in controversial fashion, he’s since found his footing in knockouts of Lamont Peterson and Jayar Inson.

Uzbekistan’s Abdukakhorov (17-0, 9 KO) spent some time prowling around the middle of the division, beating up the likes of Dmitry Mikhaylenko, Laszlo Toth, and Keita Obara. His last fight saw him defeat Luis Collazo by technical decision on the Artur Beterbiev-Oleksandr Gvozdyk undercard in October.

Two limited but extremely game contenders should make for a fun matchup.