{"id":22235,"date":"2025-07-25T07:37:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T07:37:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/22235\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T07:37:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T07:37:09","slug":"mbilli-sheeraz-to-decide-mandatory-challenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/22235\/","title":{"rendered":"Mbilli-Sheeraz to decide mandatory challenger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hamzah Sheeraz<\/a> might need one more win before moving to the front of the line.
Sheeraz (22-0-1, 18 KOs) barely broke a sweat against Edgar Berlanga<\/a> earlier this month, notching a fifth-round knockout win<\/a> against the former super middleweight title challenger to headline the “Ring III” pay-per-view show from New York’s Louis Armstrong Stadium. <\/p>\n

Before the Brit’s triumphant 168-pound debut, WBC president Mauricio Sulaiman announced their showdown would be a final eliminator. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Some were under the impression that this meant Sheeraz would now become the mandatory challenger for titleholder Canelo Alvarez<\/a>, a belief reinforced by Riyadh Season head Turki Alalshikh who declared Canelo-Sheeraz made sense next in early 2026.
Alvarez is preparing for his upcoming Terence Crawford<\/a> showdown on Sept. 13 at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium. While the 6ft 3in contender had been led to believe his career-best win was enough to grab a shot at the winner of their megafight, Sulaiman recently revealed that Sheeraz’s stoppage win actually placed him in line to face someone else. <\/p>\n

“We had a final elimination with Sheeraz against Berlanga, and Sheeraz won, so he earned the right to fight [Christian] Mbilli,” Sulaiman told Matt of Brunch Boxing. <\/p>\n

Montreal-based French contender Christian Mbilli<\/a> grabbed the interim WBC super middleweight crown last month against Maciej Sulecki<\/a>, wasting no time en route to a first-round finish. <\/p>\n

There’s a long queue waiting for their world title shot and Sulaiman is attempting to juggle matters as far as the WBC are concerned. <\/p>\n

Although he views Mbilli and Sheeraz worthy challengers, to clear up the logjam, there’s an eagerness for them to box and make a more deserving contender undeniable \u2014 much like was the case when they proposed Mbilli-Diego Pacheco earlier this year<\/a>, albeit to no avail.<\/p>\n

“We want to build a tremendous fight to have a mandatory challenger for the undisputed.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hamzah Sheeraz might need one more win before moving to the front of the line.Sheeraz (22-0-1, 18 KOs)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,9554,14244,9732,101,9553,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-22235","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-boxing","8":"tag-boxing","9":"tag-canelo-alvarez","10":"tag-christian-mbilli","11":"tag-hamzah-sheeraz","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-terence-crawford","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom","16":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}