The WBO president Gustavo Olivieri, Esq., reveals that Terence Crawford will relinquish his interim 154-lb title with their organization. Oliveiri will place #1 ranked contender Xander Zayas as the WBO mandatory challenger at 154.
Crawford is not expected to return to the 154 division after he gets his fight against Canelo Alvarez because there’s no one he can fight who would provide him with a similar payday. It’s unclear how much the Saudis are paying Crawford for the Canelo fight, but he’s definitely not going to want to return to 154 afterward and take a big pay cut.
120-Day Deadline
He says the winner of tonight’s fight between WBO junior middleweight champion Sebastian Fundora and Chordale Booker will need to defend the title against Zayas (21-0, 13 KOs) within 120 days.
The move by the WBO isn’t popular because many fans on social media view the 22-year-old Zayas as unproven because his opposition has been non-contenders during his six-year professional career. That’s not his fault. Xander’s promoters at Top Rank have been carefully guiding him in the same way they did with Brooklyn, New York native Edgar Berlanga when he was with the company.
Xander is a hype job right now, a guy that has been matched in such a way as to make him look like 24k gold, but in reality, he’s not. He’s the same guy who was staggered a couple of times by ham & eggers and is being steered away from punchers.
Top Rank’s Strategy
Zayas is from Puerto Rico, and Top Rank is trying to turn him into a star in the New York area like they were trying to do with Berlanga, whose parents are from that country. Fundora is the weakest leak among the champions at 154 right now and the only one that Top Rank would even think of matching Zayas against.
They’re not going to put Xander in with IBF champion Bakrham Murtazaliev, and they can’t with WBA champ Terence Crawford. Fundora is the only one.
“Olivieri reports that the World Boxing Organization will place Xander Zayas as the mandatory challenger at 154 pounds. The winner of Fundora-Booker should expose the title within a period of no more than 120 days,” said Salvador Rodriguez on X.
