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It looks as though IBF middleweight champion Gennadiy Golovkin will have a mandatory challenger waiting for him while he chases WBA champ Ryota Murata. Wasserman Boxing announced today that they’d successfully outbid Top Rank for the right to stage a final eliminator between #3 Patrick Wojcicki and #5 Esquiva Falcao.
Middleweight FINAL ELIMINATOR purse bid won!
— Wasserman Boxing (@WassermanBoxing) May 25, 2021
Patrick Wojcicki will face Esquiva Falcao in a middleweight showdown, with the winner to face @gggboxing for the IBF Middleweight title! #boxing pic.twitter.com/XxY1X1ynNx
London 2012 veteran Wojcicki (14-0-1, 5 KO) was previously slated to face Canada’s Patrice Volny for the spot in November, only for Germany’s ramped-up COVID protocols to scrap the endeavor two weeks from fight night. He beat countryman Ronny Mittag for an IBF trinket back in 2018 and successfully defended it against then-unbeaten Sven Elbir and Argentina’s Marcelo Fabian Caceres.
This will be his first fight since November 2019.
Falcao (28-0, 20 KO), who claimed middleweight silver at that same event, has his first notable fight in seven years as a professional when he stopped Artur Akavov this past February. Both he and Wojcicki are due for steps up, so this seems like a mutually beneficial arrangement.
Even if, you know, the prize is getting sacrificed to Golovkin or Murata at some point.