Belfast’s Caoimhin Agyarko is set to face Brandon Adams in a final eliminator for the IBF light-middleweight title.<\/p>\n
The belt is currently held by Russia’s Bakhram Murtazaliev who defends against England’s Josh Kelly in Newcastle on 31 January.<\/p>\n
With the number one and number two positions in the IBF rankings currently vacant, Agyarko and Adams – the next highest-ranked contenders available – will fight to determine who becomes the mandatory challenger.<\/p>\n
It is understood negotiations had already begun for a fight between the pair prior to the IBF’s ruling and it is possible a deal on the date and venue could be concluded prior to a purse bid being ordered, with a deadline of 5 December given.<\/p>\n
“Please be advised that number six ranked Brandon Adams and number eight Caoimhin Agyarko are the two highest-ranked available contenders in the IBF Jr [light] middleweight division,” read a letter sent to both parties by the IBF.<\/p>\n
“Both have confirmed in writing their willingness to participate in an eliminatory bout.<\/p>\n
“Accordingly, the IBF is ordering an elimination contest between these two contenders to determine the mandatory challenger for the number one position in the division. <\/p>\n
“The winner of the bout will be designated as the number one contender and the mandatory challenger.”<\/p>\n
Agyarko maintained his perfect record, improving to 18-0, when surviving a 12th-round knockdown against Ishmael Davis at Windsor Park on 13 September to win by split decision.<\/p>\n
The 28-year-old had just one outing in a frustrating 2024, but the Davis victory was his third of 2025 which has moved him into the title mix.<\/p>\n
Adams is a former title challenger at middleweight, but fell to a unanimous decision defeat by Jermall Charlo for the WBC belt in 2019.<\/p>\n
The 36-year-old Californian’s most recent bout was in Las Vegas in September when out-pointing Serhii Bohachuk to improve to 26-4 and reignite his career following defeat by Andreas Katzourakis 10 months earlier.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belfast’s Caoimhin Agyarko is set to face Brandon Adams in a final eliminator for the IBF light-middleweight title.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296467,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-296466","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296466","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296466"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296466\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296467"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296466"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296466"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296466"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}