{"id":476728,"date":"2026-02-15T15:39:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T15:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476728\/"},"modified":"2026-02-15T15:39:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T15:39:07","slug":"hamzah-sheeraz-to-fight-for-terence-crawfords-old-belt-against-undefeated-begic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/476728\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamzah Sheeraz to fight for Terence Crawford’s old belt against undefeated Begic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hamzah Sheeraz<\/a> was initially supposed to face Diego Pacheco for the vacant WBO world title, but has since been presented with a vastly different assignment at 168lbs.<\/p>\n

The four major super-middleweight belts became vacant towards the end of last year, immediately after Terence Crawford<\/a> announced his retirement as a three-division undisputed champion.<\/p>\n

Since then, both Christian Mbilli and Jose Armando Resendiz<\/a> have been elevated from \u2018interim\u2019 to full champion by the WBC and WBA, respectively, while the IBF and WBO titles remain up for grabs.<\/p>\n

As the WBO\u2019s two leading contenders, it was widely expected that Sheeraz and Pacheco would square off for the vacant belt later this year.<\/p>\n

Pacheco, however, has since ruled himself out of the contest, meaning that Sheeraz will now face a different unbeaten opponent in May.<\/p>\n

The 26-year-old comes off a fifth-round stoppage victory over Edgar Berlanga<\/a> in July, which followed his unsuccessful title challenge against Carlos Adames earlier last year.<\/p>\n

And while many felt that Sheeraz was fortunate to escape with a draw against Adames, the WBC middleweight champion, he now seems a far more rejuvenated contender after moving up in weight.<\/p>\n

Instead of colliding with Pacheco, though, the Ilford man has been presented with a WBO title opportunity against Alem Begic, a 38-year-old German who is yet to prove himself at world level.<\/p>\n

Speaking with Ring Magazine<\/a>, Sheeraz\u2019s promoter, Frank Warren, has explained his version of the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cPacheco obviously didn\u2019t want it \u2013 he didn\u2019t fancy it \u2013 so we\u2019ve got the German, Begic. That\u2019s a real good fight for him [Sheeraz]. For me, it\u2019s a very winnable fight. He wins that, he gets his title, we\u2019ve delivered and then on to bigger and better things.<\/p>\n

\u201cI chose to go there [the WBO route] because I fancy the Pacheco fight. I looked at the box office, the American-based box office. It had Matchroom, it had us [Queensberry]. It had all the things that make it work. I was surprised [the fights didn\u2019t get made].\u201d<\/p>\n

Pacheco would have almost certainly made for a more intriguing fight against Sheeraz, who many believe has landed himself an straightforward night\u2019s work with Begic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hamzah Sheeraz was initially supposed to face Diego Pacheco for the vacant WBO world title, but has since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":476729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-476728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476728","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=476728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/476728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/476729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=476728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=476728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=476728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}