{"id":783356,"date":"2026-09-26T15:26:08","date_gmt":"2026-09-26T15:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783356\/"},"modified":"2026-09-26T15:26:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-26T15:26:08","slug":"frank-warren-reacts-to-hamzah-sheeraz-vacating-world-title-instead-of-facing-janibek-alimkhanuly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/783356\/","title":{"rendered":"Frank Warren reacts to Hamzah Sheeraz vacating world title instead of facing Janibek Alimkhanuly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frank Warren believes Hamzah Sheeraz has been wrongfully advised to vacate his WBO title and avoid facing leading contender Janibek Alimkhanuly<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The saga began with Alimkhanuly becoming the sanctioning body\u2019s mandatory challenger at 168lbs, despite testing positive for banned substance meldonium in November.<\/p>\n

Back then, the IBF responded by stripping the Kazakh of his middleweight belt, while the WBO dished out a year-long suspension \u2013 only to then terminate it in July \u2013 and allow the undefeated 33-year-old to keep his world title.<\/p>\n

Not only that, but the organisation ordered Sheeraz to make a mandatory defence after Alimkhanuly decided to vacate his strap and join the super-middleweight division.<\/p>\n

This then led to a purse bid hearing, with Queensberry Promotions placing a winning sum of just over $1 million and securing the right to stage their contest.<\/p>\n

Yet despite being entitled to the lion\u2019s share of a 75\/25 split, Sheeraz decided to vacate the belt<\/a> he had acquired by scoring a second-round finish over Alem Begic in May.<\/p>\n

Speaking with IFL TV<\/a>, Queensberry boss Warren expressed his frustration with the 27-year-old, who is believed to have at least one fight remaining on his current promotional contract.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very disappointed about [Sheeraz] vacating his belt. Vacating the belt based upon what? There is no reason; there\u2019s no rationale to that. You\u2019re a champion \u2013 defend your belt.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou won it against probably the easiest guy in the top 50. We manipulated and worked hard to get him in that position, and now he doesn\u2019t want to [defend the title].<\/p>\n

\u201cI know who he listens to for his advice, and the fella who\u2019s telling him all this stuff \u2013 what he knows about boxing you could write on a pin head.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result of Sheeraz relinquishing his world title, Alimkhanuly has been ordered to face fellow unbeaten contender Jacob Bank<\/a> for the vacant belt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frank Warren believes Hamzah Sheeraz has been wrongfully advised to vacate his WBO title and avoid facing leading…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[2560,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-783356","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\/783356","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=783356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}