LAS VEGAS – The IBF has ordered a junior-featherweight elimination bout between former world champions Jerwin Ancajas and Ryosuke Nishida to determine its mandatory challenger to Naoya Inoue.
In a letter this week to representatives of both fighters, IBF Championships Chairman George Martinez said negotiations between Japan’s former bantamweight champion Nishida 10-1 (2 KOs) and Philippines’ former super-flyweight champion Ancajas 37-4-2 (24 KOs) should conclude by September 23.
If as deal is not finalized by then, a purse bid will be ordered.
Ranked No. 5 in the IBF, Ancajas is coming off an August 2 majority decision victory over Ruben Dario Casero in Long Beach, California, while Nishida lost his IBF bantamweight belt to unbeaten unified champion Juntio Nakatani by TKO after five rounds June 8 in Japan.
Nishida is currently ranked No. 8 by the IBF among 122lbs fighters.
Undisputed champion Naoya Inoue will defend his belts Monday morning U.S. time versus former unified champion Murodjan “M.J.” Akhmadaliev in Japan. Akhmadaliev is the WBA mandatory challenger.
If victorious, Inoue is expected to fight his WBC mandatory challenger David Alan Picasso in December in Saudi Arabia before a planned showdown with Nakatani in 2026.
Lance Pugmire is BoxingScene’s senior U.S. writer and an assistant producer for ProBox TV. Pugmire has covered boxing since the early 2000s, first at the Los Angeles Times and then at The Athletic and USA Today. He won the Boxing Writers’ Association of America’s Nat Fleischer Award in 2022 for career excellence.
