One of Teofimo Lopez Jr.’s mandatory challengers is about to emerge.
George Kambosos Jr. is scheduled to fight Lee Selby in an IBF lightweight title eliminator on the Oleksandr Usyk-Derek Chisora card on Oct. 31. The site of the show has not been finalized.
The IBF has Kambosos ranked No. 3, Selby No. 4. The Nos. 1 and 2 slots are vacant.
Kambosos (18-0, 10 KOs) traveled from his home in Australia to fight American Mickey Bey this past December at Madison Square Garden and emerged with a split-decision victory, which set up the fight with Selby.
Lopez outpointed Vasiliy Lomachenko to become undisputed 135-pound champ last Saturday.
“Beating Lee Selby means everything to me,” Kambosos said. “I’m hungry, focused and have trained like a man possessed to handle business on October 31st. This is a young man’s sport and Lopez proved that against Lomachenko when he became the unified lightweight world champion. and I will prove it once again against Lee Selby.
“This hungry young lion will become mandatory, that is my complete focus, this is why I have sacrificed so much and then you best believe that ‘Ferocious Kambosos’ will be primed and ready to take all the belts off another hungry, young lion in Teofimo Lopez. Let’s see who the real king of the jungle is.”
Selby (28-2, 9 KOs) is coming off a majority-decision victory over Ricky Burns in October of last year. That was his second consecutive win since losing his featherweight title to Josh Warrington by a split decision in 2018.
“He’s very confident in himself,” the Welshman said. “If you listened to him talk, you’d think he’s the next Muhammad Ali, which he’s not. Looking at his record, it’s difficult to gauge how good he really is. His best win came against Mickey Bey when he was past his best at 36 and inactive. The rest of his record is padded.
“This fight has been a long time coming, and I’m glad we’re just over a week away now. I’m one step away from a shot at the IBF lightweight world title and my dream of becoming Wales’ first ever two-weight world champion.”
Usyk (17-0, 13 KOs), the former unified cruiserweight titleholder, faces his first significant test at heavyweight against longtime contender Chisora (32-9, 23 KOs).