{"id":387949,"date":"2026-01-24T12:29:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T12:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/387949\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T12:29:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T12:29:07","slug":"conor-benn-may-sacrifice-mandatory-title-shot-to-face-a-different-champion-in-very-big-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/387949\/","title":{"rendered":"Conor Benn may sacrifice mandatory title shot to face a different champion in ‘very big fight’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conor Benn could forgo his WBC mandatory position, sacrificing his shot at the winner of Mario Barrios vs Ryan Garcia, in pursuit of an alternative world title opportunity.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old became the WBC\u2019s leading welterweight contender following his rematch with Chris Eubank Jr, which was fought at 160lbs, in November.<\/p>\n

On that particular night, Benn, who has not fought at 147lbs since 2021, was able to exact his revenge over Eubank with a dominant unanimous decision victory.<\/p>\n

As a result, he now occupies a favourable position to face the winner of Barrios-Garcia, which takes place at the T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas, on February 21.<\/p>\n

But while he could, of course, wait for his opportunity to claim the WBC title, there is equally a chance that \u2018The Destroyer\u2019 may choose to face Rolando Romero instead.<\/p>\n

The 30-year-old claimed his WBA secondary title with a points victory over Garcia in May<\/a>, before being upgraded from \u2018regular\u2019 to full world welterweight champion.<\/p>\n

More recently, though, \u2018Rolly\u2019 was ordered to defend his belt against WBA interim champion Shakhram Giyasov, who has been the sanctioning body\u2019s mandatory challenger for quite some time.<\/p>\n

In a bid to overcome this hurdle, Benn\u2019s promoter Eddie Hearn has suggested that a \u2018solution\u2019 might be found, allowing the Londoner to leapfrog Giyasov and face Romero.<\/p>\n

Having already spoken with Luis DeCubas, Romero\u2019s manager, Hearn told iFL TV<\/a> that a clash between Benn and \u2018Rolly\u2019 could soon be in the works.<\/p>\n

\u201c[It\u2019s] a fight that myself and Luis DeCubas have been discussing. I mentioned it [on Thursday] with Keith Connolly [Benn\u2019s manager]; Conor\u2019s coming to New York next week [and] we\u2019re all going to have dinner.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Romero has to fight Shakhram Giyasov \u2013 [the fight has] been ordered [by the WBA], no escape \u2013 so we would have to find a solution for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cConor\u2019s got a tough decision because, obviously, Ryan Garcia\u2019s fighting Barrios on Feb 21. Benn wants to fight the winner, [but] there\u2019s rumours that the winner of that fight could fight the winner of [Teofimo Lopez vs Shakur Stevenson].<\/p>\n

\u201cFor Conor, the Ryan Garcia fight is bigger than the \u2018Rolly\u2019 Romero fight. But the \u2018Rolly\u2019 Romero fight, in the UK, for the world championship, is also a very big fight.<\/p>\n

\u201cPersonally, I like the Romero fight. I think it does great business in London.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Lopez defending his WBO super-lightweight strap against Stevenson at Madison Square Garden, New York, next week<\/a>, perhaps there will, indeed, be an opportunity for the winner to enter an immediate world title fight at 147lbs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Conor Benn could forgo his WBC mandatory position, sacrificing his shot at the winner of Mario Barrios vs…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":387950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-387949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387949","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=387949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}