{"id":352907,"date":"2026-01-05T06:31:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-05T06:31:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/352907\/"},"modified":"2026-01-05T06:31:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-05T06:31:13","slug":"the-rings-no-2-bantamweight-christian-medina-will-defend-title-vs-adrian-curiel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/352907\/","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":352908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,6842,6836,6841,6840,6834,6102,6837,6838,6839,6835,6588,6847,6846,6830,6828,6829,6844,6831,6827,6848,6843,101,6845,6826,6833,56,54,55,6832],"class_list":["post-352907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-boxing-community","tag-boxing-fights","tag-boxing-history","tag-boxing-interviews","tag-boxing-magazine","tag-boxing-news","tag-boxing-photos","tag-boxing-rankings","tag-boxing-schedule","tag-boxing-videos","tag-boxing-results","tag-disqualification","tag-draw","tag-fight","tag-fighter","tag-fighter-news","tag-knockout","tag-latest-boxing-matches","tag-ring","tag-ring-magazine","tag-split-decision","tag-sports","tag-technical-knockout","tag-the-ring","tag-top-fighters","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-upcoming-boxing-matches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352907","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=352907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/352907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/352908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=352907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=352907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=352907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}