{"id":182250,"date":"2025-10-01T09:58:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-01T09:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/182250\/"},"modified":"2025-10-01T09:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-01T09:58:09","slug":"rafael-espinoza-slated-to-defend-featherweight-title-vs-arnold-khegai-in-mexico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/182250\/","title":{"rendered":"Rafael Espinoza slated to defend featherweight title vs. Arnold Khegai in Mexico"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rafael Espinoza <\/a>is slated to defend his WBO featherweight title vs. Arnold Khegai on Nov. 15 in Mexico, sources tell The Ring. <\/a>
The Ring reported that Espinoza would return<\/a> on this date, but the opponent hadn’t been finalized.
Espinoza is The Ring\u2019s No. 1 boxer at 126 pounds<\/a>. The bout will be his fourth title defense and first title fight in his native Mexico. Espinoza last fought in Mexico in July 2023, one fight before he won the title over Robeisy Ramirez<\/a> in The Ring\u2019s 2023 Upset of the Year.
Espinoza (27-0, 23 KOs) defeated Ramirez a second time the following year. The 31-year-old is coming off a seventh-round TKO victory over Edward Vazquez in May.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cEl Divino\u201d possesses dizzying height for his weight class at 6-foot-1. Ukraine\u2019s Khegai (23-2-1, 14 KOs) will concede eight inches at 5-5. The 33-year-old will be fighting for his first world title. <\/p>\n

Khegai dropped a split decision to Joet Gonzalez<\/a> in March, the second defeat of his career (the other came against Stephen Fulton in 2020.) He returned with a stay-busy win over Liborio Solis earlier this month. <\/p>\n

Mike Coppinger is The Ring\u2019s senior insider. He co-hosts \u201cInside the Ring\u201d every Monday with Max Kellerman. Follow him on X\/Instagram: @MikeCoppinger<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rafael Espinoza is slated to defend his WBO featherweight title vs. Arnold Khegai on Nov. 15 in Mexico,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":182251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,2989,2983,2831,2988,2981,2984,2985,2986,2987,2982,1920,2993,2992,1913,2976,2977,2990,2978,2975,2994,2772,85,2991,2974,2980,2979],"class_list":["post-182250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-community","tag-boxing-fights","tag-boxing-history","tag-boxing-interviews","tag-boxing-magazine","tag-boxing-photos","tag-boxing-rankings","tag-boxing-results","tag-boxing-schedule","tag-boxing-videos","tag-boxing-news","tag-disqualification","tag-draw","tag-fight","tag-fighter","tag-fighter-news","tag-knockout","tag-latest-boxing-matches","tag-ring","tag-ring-magazine","tag-split-decision","tag-sports","tag-technical-knockout","tag-the-ring","tag-top-fighters","tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/182251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}