Esquiva Falcao vs Vincenzo Gualtieri vacant title fight set for July 1st in Germany

The IBF middleweight title won’t remain vacant for much longer, as Esquiva Falcao is officially set to face Vincenzo Gualtieri on July 1st in the latter’s hometown of Wuppertal, Germany.

No mention of stateside broadcasting; Falcao (30-0, 20 KO) is with Top Rank and ESPN+ is already airing Jared Anderson vs Zhan Khossobutskiy later that day, but they also lost the purse bid, so who knows.

Gennadiy Golovkin previously won the title against Sergiy Derevyanchenko and successfully defended it against Kamil Szeremeta and Ryota Murata before vacating it in the face of an order to fight Falcao. The Brazilian, who parlayed his 2012 Olympic silver medal into a decade of farting around, beat Patrice Volny by controversial technical decision in their 2021 eliminator and has fought just once since.

Gualtieri (20-0-1, 7 KO) is the latest unfortunate byproduct of Apinun Khongsong Syndrome: the IBF’s insistence on giving its regional titlists high rankings regardless if they’ve ever, you know, won a meaningful fight. He’s never fought outside of Germany nor beaten anyone you’ve ever heard of, but he won the “Inter-Continental” belt in 2021 and defended it twice, which is why BoxRec’s ninth-best German middleweight is fighting for a world title.

To be fair to ol’ Vinny, the rest of their rankings are absolutely dire. Behind him sit Denis Radovan, Andrei Mikhailovich, Meiirim Nursaltanov, Vincent Feigenbutz, Felix Cash, and Steve Rolls.

God, look at this division. The WBC’s happy to let Jermall Charlo sit on the belt for years (and maybe fight Canelo) and Erislandy Lara’s going to defend his WBA belt against Danny Garcia at a 155-pound catchweight. The only active, elite titlist just defended his belt against Steven [curse word] Butler.

What’s the verdict, sadder than Bridgerweight?