By Jake Donovan
It's not the leap he sought for his first fight of 2016, but Hughie Fury has landed an opponent for his March 26 appearance at Wembley Arena in London, England.
Fury's promoter, Mick Hennessy revealed on Tuesday that the unbeaten heavyweight will next face Nagy Aguilera. The bout will serve in supporting capacity to a domestic middleweight title fight between Nick Blackwell and Chris Eubank Jr.
The hope for the 21-year old prospect-turned-contender was to engage in fights that would move him closer towards joining his more celebrated cousin Tyson Fury on the heavyweight title stage. There were even talks at one point of the younger Fury facing Deontay Wilder, as he was offered an opportunity on short notice for a title fight that would have taken place last September live on American free-to-air network NBC on the road in Birmingham, Alabama.
However, it was decided that accepting such a fight at that point in his career and without the benefit of a full training camp was not in his best interest. From there came the conscious effort to move Fury along the right way, with the hope of upgrading the competition level in 2016 to prepare for when a similar opportunity comes along.
With that came the search for ranked contenders that would move him closer towards a mandatory title position, while also providing the necessary in-ring experience. According to his father and trainer Peter Fury, the names sought included 2015 ESPN2 Boxcino Heavyweight tournament winner Andrey Fedosov and top-rated World Boxing Association (WBA) contender Alexander Ustinov.
Neither were interested in taking the fight for varying reasons, though perhaps similar to why both turned down the chance to face unbeaten heavyweight Luis Ortiz.
Fedosov claimed top honors in the 2015 ESPN2 Boxcino Heavyweight tournament, but simply asks for the luxury of a full training camp rather than what would functionally become a cash-in fight.
Ustinov is currently in line to face Ortiz as part of the WBA heavyweight proposed tournament. As such, his team decided to pass on this weekend, waiting out Ortiz' fight with Tony Thompson before moving towards negotiations for their mandated title fight due by the end of June.
Instead, Team Fury settles on Aguilera (20-9, 14KOs), a veteran journeyman from New York by way of Dominican Republic. On his best day, he can provide fits for a rising heavyweight like Fury, as evidenced in his hard-fought Aug. '14 loss to unbeaten prospect Gerald Washington.
Aguilera has also been in with the likes of Tomasz Adamek, Chris Arreola, Antonio Tarver and Dominic Breazeale, though all coming in losing efforts. He comes into this fight on the heels of a respectable win, having dropped and stopped Marcin Rekowski in 10 rounds last September on the road in Lodz, Poland.
Fury (18-0, 10KOs) is coming off of a four-win campaign in 2015, including a 10-round decision over Andriy Rudenko last February in Monaco. His two most recent bouts have resulted in quick knockout victories - a 2nd round stoppage of Emilio Ezequiel Zarate in November, followed by a 1st round blitzing of Larry Olubamiwo in December.
The wins served as bookends for Tyson Fury's celebrated World heavyweight championship lifting effort over Wladimir Klitschko last November in Germany. Talks are ongoing for a contractually-enforced rematch, due to take place sometime in the second quarter of 2016.
Providing he emerges victorious on March 26, perhaps Hughie will land another fight - or two - by that point to inch closer towards joining his cousin on the title stage.
Jake Donovan is the managing editor of BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox