By Edward Chaykovsky
IBF featherweight champion Lee Selby is hoping to land a big fight in the near future.
He feels the weight division is wide open after Vasyl Lomachenko's moved up to super featherweight last weekend and knocked out Roman Martinez to capture the WBO world championship.
Selby (23-1, 8KOs) is targeting all of the big names in his weight division - including WBC world champion Gary Russell Jr., WBA champion Leo Santa Cruz, and Carl Frampton who is moving up to the weight class next month.
Selby captured his title last May with a dominating win over Evgeny Gradovich. He then retained his belt against former champion Fernando Montiel and mandatory challenger Eric Hunter.
Santa Cruz and Frampton are going to battle next month at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Selby be watching closely and wants the winner. Selby, Russell, Santa Cruz and Frampton are all advised by powerful manager Al Haymon.
He exclusively told Sky Sports: "I need to get a win over either Russell Jr, Santa Cruz or Frampton. That will catapult me to the top or very near to it. I want all the champions at featherweight. Myself, Santa Cruz, Frampton, Cuellar, Mares and Russell Jr are all advised by Al Haymon so all those fights are in-house and could be easily made. If I could beat one of the American-based fighters over there, I'd turn into a big star over there because they're big names.
"My next opponent will be a top-class fighter and beyond that, I'll most definitely be targeting the winner of Santa Cruz against Frampton. If Frampton wins then we can have a massive unification fight over in the UK. If he can keep his footwork up for the full 12 rounds [he can win]. If Frampton stops and holds his feet like he did late on in the fight against Scott Quigg then Santa Cruz can capitalise with that relentless style of his. He'll just be on him constantly so Frampton really needs to keep his feet moving or Santa Cruz will win.
"Physically, they're both super-bantamweights, really. Santa Cruz has only fought up at featherweight recently and they were against former super-bantamweights, too. He hasn't boxed a true featherweight yet and obviously neither has Frampton."
