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Thammanoon Niyomtrong and Erick Rosa remain without a confirmed date for their long overdue title consolidation bout.
All deadlines have passed for when the WBA strawweight title fight was supposed to take place, without any resolution in sight. The two were originally due to meet in October, with three separate dates—October 7 in Las Vegas, October 14 in Minneapolis, Minnesota and October 19 in Haiti—provided to the WBA.
The latter date was supposed to serve as the drop-dead date for when the bout had to take place, per the terms of a July 21 purse bid hearing. Shuan Boxing, Rosa’s promoter, won the rights to the fight with the minimum amount of $80,000 as the lone bidder during the session, along with the aforementioned fight dates provided to the sanctioning body.
Language in the latest round of the ordered fight called for either party to be stripped of their version of the title for failure to honor the terms of the purse bid. Thailand’s Niyomtrong (24-0, 9KOs) is the reigning WBA ‘Super’ strawweight titlist and the sport’s longest-reigning male titleholder. Dominican Republic’s Rosa (6-0, 2KOs) holds the secondary WBA ‘Regular’ title.
Shuan Boxing does the bulk of its U.S. business with Premier Boxing Champions (PBC), whose lone current network deal is with Showtime. Only two dates remain on the calendar for 2023—a November 25 Pay-Per-View event headlined by the David Benavidez-Demetrius Andrade super middleweight fight, and a December 16 Showtime Championship Boxing card in Minneapolis.
No fights are yet confirmed for the December 16 date, which will serve as the final Showtime boxing event after more than 37 years in the business.
Niyomtrong-Rosa was not yet rumored to take place on either show. Representatives from the WBA, Shuan Boxing and PBC have not responded to multiple inquiries from Boxing Scene seeking clarification on the long dragged-out matter.
Per the prior WBA ruling, the fight cannot take place in the home country of either boxer. That decision was made when the fight was previously budgeted to take place March 1 in Nakhon Sawan, Thailand. The date was based on the terms of the first purse bid hearing, last December in Orlando, Florida, held during the WBA’s annual convention. Petchyindee Boxing Promotions posted $140,000, outbidding Shuan Boxing ($122,000) who hoped to bring the fight either to D.R. or on a Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) card in early 2023.
As previously reported by Boxing Scene, their March 1 bout ran into trouble when Rosa was detained by Thai immigration officials upon arrival in Bangkok. Rosa’s passport did not meet the requirements for Dominicans to travel to Thailand, though it remains unclear why he was not stopped upon boarding a plane en route to Thailand.
A breakdown in communication between his team–led by promoter Belgica Pena of Shuan Boxing—and Petpiya Fight left Rosa’s travel status in limbo before receiving permission to return home. The development thus killed plans for the fight, to the detriment of Petpiya who invested heavily into the event.
It was determined by the WBA that both parties were at fault prior to ordering a fresh round of talks with an assigned March 28 date for a purse bid should the two sides fail to reach terms. A deal was reportedly reached that would see the fight land on a summertime PBC event.
Unresolved issues forced the WBA to go back to the well. The July 21 purse bid hearing came with the stipulation that the fight could not take place in the home country of either boxer.
Niyomtrong is now under a similar predicament, as he is unable to secure a travel visa. Rosa’s side has used that as an argument to have the unbeaten Thai boxer stripped of his title. The counter argument from Niyomtrong and Petchyindee is that they cannot secure a work visa to fight in the U.S. without a confirmed date and contract in place.
The WBA can take extreme action and strip both boxers of their respective titles for failure to defend, which would remove both belts from existence per the sanctioning body’s ongoing title reduction campaign. That type of move would then result in the next two highest ranked challengers to fight for the standard WBA strawweight title.
Niyomtrong has held the WBA ‘Super’ strawweight title since June 2016. Eleven successful defenses have come of the sport's longest active title reign among male boxers. However, he has not fought since a twelve-round, unanimous decision over countryman, close friend and former long-reigning WBC titlist Wanheng ‘TBE’ Menayothin last July 20 in Chonburi, Thailand.
Rosa won the interim WBA title in a July 2021 points win over unbeaten Ricardo Astuvilca. He upgraded to WBA ‘Regular’ titleholder with a win over Vic Saludar in their December 2021 bout to determine the final mandatory for Niyomtrong.
The drama surrounding this bout led to a 20-month inactive period. He was permitted a non-title fight, which came on August 25 when he scored a sixth-round knockout of Orlando Pino in his Santo Domingo hometown, where all six career pro fights have taken place.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
