{"id":618199,"date":"2026-06-03T03:36:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-03T03:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/618199\/"},"modified":"2026-06-03T03:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-03T03:36:08","slug":"anthony-cacace-belfasts-world-champion-ordered-to-defend-title-against-samedov","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/618199\/","title":{"rendered":"Anthony Cacace: Belfast&#8217;s world champion ordered to defend title against Samedov"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Belfast&#8217;s Anthony Cacace has been ordered to defend his WBA super-featherweight title against Russia&#8217;s Elnur Samedov.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cacace won the title with a points victory over James &#8216;Jazza&#8217; Dickens in Dublin on 14 March, improving his record to 25 wins with one defeat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 37-year-old called for a unification bout with Mexico&#8217;s Emanuel Navarrete &#8211; who holds the WBO and IBF belts &#8211; but instead has been ordered by the WBA to make a first defence against 32-year-old southpaw Samedov (22-1) who won the &#8216;interim&#8217; belt with an 11th-round stoppage of John Lenon Gutierrez in February.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Citing Championship Rule C.10 in a statement, the sanctioning body confirmed &#8220;both camps will have a 30-day negotiation period to reach an agreement&#8221; from today, 2 June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;A champion is required to defend the title against the highest-ranked available contender within 120 days of winning the championship, provided that no official challenger has been designated,&#8221; they said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Also noting Rule C.13, which prohibits champion Cacace from competing against any boxer other than the official challenger during the final 60 days preceding the mandatory defence deadline, they confirmed &#8220;both parties are now required to begin negotiations&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Should no agreement be reached, a purse bid may be ordered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belfast&#8217;s Anthony Cacace has been ordered to defend his WBA super-featherweight title against Russia&#8217;s Elnur Samedov. Cacace won&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618200,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-618199","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\/618199","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=618199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618199\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}