By Steve Kim
Coming off his solid 10-round victory over Yuniesky Gonzalez on December 19th, light heavyweight Vyacheslav Shabranskyy is looking for bigger and better things in 2016.
According to Golden Boy Promotions Vice President Eric Gomez, Shabranskyy was ready and willing to face former super middleweight champion Andre Ward (28-0, 15KOs) in an HBO televised main event on March 26th in Oakland, California.
Ward's handlers reached out to Golden Boy, who were interested in doing that fight, but Ward's team ultimately settled on unbeaten Sullivan Barrera of Cuba.
''We're going to be getting him a fight in April or possibly early May," said Gomez to BoxingScene.com. "So we'll be keeping him busy and he's available to fight anybody. At one point they had contacted us to see if we wanted to face Andre Ward and then they went with the other guy, Sullivan Barrera. But at one point we were contacted and yes, we were willing to do that fight."
Shabranskyy (15-0, 12 KO's), who is rated seventh by the WBC, is poised to take on the bigger names in the light heavyweight division. The current WBC heavyweight champion is Adonis Stevenson of Canada.
"He's willing to fight anybody out there. That's the great thing about the kid, he's willing to fight anybody. He's coming off that great win, that very good win and he'll fight anyone," states Gomez.
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.
