{"id":746445,"date":"2026-08-22T19:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T19:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/746445\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T19:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T19:04:09","slug":"hamzah-sheeraz-admits-he-may-vacate-world-title-rather-than-face-mandatory-challenger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/746445\/","title":{"rendered":"Hamzah Sheeraz admits he may vacate world title rather than face mandatory challenger"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hamzah Sheeraz<\/a> became the WBO super-middleweight champion back in May, but the towering Berkshire-born knockout artist has now admitted that he could soon vacate his world title rather than face his newly-anointed mandatory challenger.<\/p>\n

Sheeraz knocked out Alem Begic on the Oleksandr Usyk vs. Rico Verhoeven undercard to claim the vacant WBO crown, which was held by Terence Crawford until \u2018Bud\u2019 chose to retire.<\/p>\n

Last month, Sheeraz made a first defence of the belt, decisioning Simon Zachenhuber less than eight weeks after winning the title.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath, Sheeraz called for a showdown with Jacob Bank, who impressed in a victory over Pawel August elsewhere on the undercard, but it seems as though the Danish contender will not get his shot.<\/p>\n

Instead, the WBO have installed Janibek Alimkhanuly as Sheeraz\u2019s new mandatory challenger<\/a>, despite the fact that the former unified middleweight world champion failed a drugs test ahead of a planned unification clash with Erislandy Lara back in December.<\/p>\n

\u2018Qazaq Style\u2019 had been handed a 12-month suspension of the sport, but the ban was lifted last month ahead of a move up to super-middleweight due to the fact that he was a first-time offender with a clean prior record, who fully cooperated and submitted medical proof<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking on The Ariel Helwani Show,<\/a> Sheeraz fumed about the WBO\u2019s decision whilst revealing that he has been unable to contact the sanctioning body and is considering vacating the title.<\/p>\n

\u201cEver since I won the title, we have tried to sit down with them and my team has reached out, but we have got nothing back.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat [vacating the title] is something that I will have to discuss with my team. What they have done, it pushes you into that corner of me eventually thinking like that and, if I was to do that, it would be totally justifiable.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI keep banging on about morals and that is what it is down to. It is down to being a clean athlete, being someone who stands for clean athletes and one who is true to that and represents that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sheeraz \u2013 who called the mandatory order \u2018corruption\u2019 \u2013 said that another route could be a possible unification with one of his fellow super-middleweight world champions, which would allow him to temporarily bypass his mandated scrap with Alimkhanuly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that [a unification fight] overrides it but I could be wrong, but that is another option.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canelo Alvarez will challenge Christian Mbilli for the WBC marble on October 31, whilst Osleys Iglesias attempts a first defence of the IBF super-middleweight throne against Oliver Zaren earlier that month.<\/p>\n

As a result, that may mean that Mexico\u2019s WBA super-middleweight champion Jaime Munguia could be Sheeraz\u2019s only option for an immediate unification.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hamzah Sheeraz became the WBO super-middleweight champion back in May, but the towering Berkshire-born knockout artist has now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746446,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-746445","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\/746445","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=746445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}