{"id":389928,"date":"2026-01-05T17:04:31","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T17:04:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/389928\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T17:04:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T17:04:31","slug":"the-rings-no-2-bantamweight-christian-medina-will-defend-title-vs-adrian-curiel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/389928\/","title":{"rendered":"The Ring’s No. 2 Bantamweight Christian Medina Will Defend Title vs. Adrian Curiel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Christian Medina<\/a> will make the first defence of his WBO bantamweight world title against former IBF junior flyweight champion Adrian Curiel<\/a> on Feb. 6, it was announced Saturday.<\/p>\n

Originally teased for January 31, the fight moving back seven days makes sense because of a heavy schedule featuring world title fights and must-see matchups worldwide.<\/p>\n

It was announced earlier in the day that Medina (26-4, 19 KOs) had signed a promotional contract with Matchroom, a development which will pique the mind of Ring and unified junior bantamweight world champion Jesse Rodriguez<\/a> as he considers his options. <\/p>\n

Medina-Curiel, a Mexican duel, will headline an ESPN Knockout\/TV show in Jalisco. ESPN Knockout’s Salvador Rodriguez was first to report the matchup as the 25-year-old champion is set to return home. <\/p>\n

It comes just nine months after his last outing there, needing two rounds to stop 16-9 pro Juan Ramirez Marquez on a Matchroom show shared by Curiel.<\/p>\n

Curiel outpointed 8-2-2 pro Johan Rubio over 10 rounds at a career-high weight, 119 pounds, during his only appearance of the year. Medina returned to Japan on September 14 and delivered a vicious fourth-round knockout win over Yoshiki Takei (11-1, 9 KOs) to rip away a the champion’s crown in style<\/a>.Former IBF bantamweight champion Ryosuke Nishida<\/a> inflicted Medina’s last defeat, a 12-round decision, in August 2023 during their title eliminator from Osaka, Japan.
Medina’s KO of Takei gave Mexico a sixth world champion hours after national icon Canelo Alvarez lost his undisputed crown<\/a> to Terence Crawford.
Curiel’s 108-pound championship reign didn’t last long, after a 10th-round knockout loss to Sivenathi Nontshinga<\/a>, who he’d beaten for the belt, on February 2024.<\/p>\n

Having moved up to flyweight, Curiel (26-6-1, 5 KOs) has won and gone 10 rounds in his last two outings, though this is a very different proposition: only his second appearance in an ever-changing class against The Ring’s No. 2 bantamweight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian Medina will make the first defence of his WBO bantamweight world title against former IBF junior flyweight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389929,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,1151,1144,1150,1149,1142,711,1145,1146,1147,1148,1143,49,48,1156,1155,1138,1136,1137,1153,1139,1135,1157,1152,82,1154,1134,1141,1140],"class_list":{"0":"post-389928","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-boxing-community","10":"tag-boxing-fights","11":"tag-boxing-history","12":"tag-boxing-interviews","13":"tag-boxing-magazine","14":"tag-boxing-news","15":"tag-boxing-photos","16":"tag-boxing-rankings","17":"tag-boxing-results","18":"tag-boxing-schedule","19":"tag-boxing-videos","20":"tag-ca","21":"tag-canada","22":"tag-disqualification","23":"tag-draw","24":"tag-fight","25":"tag-fighter","26":"tag-fighter-news","27":"tag-knockout","28":"tag-latest-boxing-matches","29":"tag-ring","30":"tag-ring-magazine","31":"tag-split-decision","32":"tag-sports","33":"tag-technical-knockout","34":"tag-the-ring","35":"tag-top-fighters","36":"tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389928","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=389928"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389928\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389928"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389928"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389928"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}