{"id":440240,"date":"2026-01-27T07:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-27T07:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/440240\/"},"modified":"2026-01-27T07:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T07:42:08","slug":"frank-sanchez-vs-richard-torrez-jr-eliminator-targeted-for-march-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/440240\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Sanchez vs Richard Torrez Jr eliminator targeted for March 28"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">After a bevy of \u201cno thank you\u2019s\u201d and a long string of purse bid delays, Dan Rafael <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/DanRafael1\/status\/2015862120722600329\" rel=\"nofollow\">reports<\/a> that Frank Sanchez and Richard Torrez Jr have finally come to terms for an IBF heavyweight eliminator. Per Rafael, the bout is \u201clikely\u201d to land on the undercard of Sebastian Fundora vs Keith Thurman on March 28th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Sanchez (25-1, 18 KO) outclassed the also-unbeaten Efe Ajagba in 2021 and promptly took his foot off the gas, cruising past second-tier foes before becoming another victim of Agit Kabayel\u2019s tummy-punching rampage nearly four years later. He\u2019s competed just once since, mauling 18-24 Ramon Olivas Echeverria last February.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Torrez (14-0, 12 KO), a 2020 Olympic silver medalist and one of the last men standing in Top Rank\u2019s attempted takeover of the heavyweight division, scored his biggest win to date last April with a grimy decision over fellow Olympian Guido Vianello. Despite fighting four times a year from 2022-2024, he closed out the year with just one more win, a one-round thrashing of the ludicrously outclassed Tomas Salek on Top Rank\u2019s mismatch-laden Espinoza-Khegai show in November.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Between Sanchez\u2019s tendency to cruise and Torrez\u2019s habit of punching-and-clutching when his opponent doesn\u2019t crumble, I\u2019m not sure we\u2019ll get a banger out of all this malarkey. I\u2019m still glad it\u2019s finally happening; I\u2019m eager to see how the post-Usyk heavyweight landscape comes together.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After a bevy of \u201cno thank you\u2019s\u201d and a long string of purse bid delays, Dan Rafael reports&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":440241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[571],"tags":[64,63,802,1920,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-440240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-boxing","11":"tag-boxing-news","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440240","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=440240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/440240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/440241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=440240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=440240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=440240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}