Xander Zayas is fully aware that the Puerto Rican world champions that came before have taken lighter touches for their homecoming title defenses.
As the 23-year-old moves toward his own moment as the new WBO 154lbs champion, Zayas, 22-0 (13 KOs), doesn’t want to follow directly in the greats’ footsteps.
An official familiar with the discussions told BoxingScene that Zayas has rejected Top Rank stablemate Giovanni Santillan as an opponent for his first title defense in January in Puerto Rico, and is instead seeking a unification match against new WBA champion Abass Baraou, 17-1 (9 KOs).
Baraou was elevated to full champion this week following former champion Terence Crawford’s victory over Canelo Alvarez for the undisputed title two divisions north on September 13.
Baraou, a 30-year-old from Germany, captured the WBA interim 154lbs belt on August 23 with a unanimous decision victory over Cuba’s Yoenis Tellez.
Florida’s Zayas captured the vacant WBO belt on July 26 by defeating Jorge Garcia Perez by unanimous decision at the Madison Square Garden Theater on Top Rank’s final ESPN card before its eight-year broadcast relationship ended.
His January return should be one of the first in Top Rank’s expected new broadcast agreement, although that deal has not been finalized.
Top Rank floated the name of Santillan, 34-1 (18 KOs), but Team Zayas rejected the welterweight whose only loss was to current WBO 147lbs champion Brian Norman Jnr.
“Although we’ve told him the opponent doesn’t really matter in a homecoming fight like this, he wants a tougher fight,” said an individual connected to the fight talks, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he’s not authorized to speak publicly on such matters.
Indeed, Puerto Rican legend Felix Trinidad – whom Zayas recently met at an event – fought lesser-knowns Luis Garcia, Ekoli Zulu, Hugo Pineda and Hacine Cherifi in homecoming bouts.
Fellow Hall of Famer Migiel Cotto came home after winning titles to fight Kelson Pinto, DeMarcus Corley, Gianluca Branco and Oktay Urkal.
And women’s champion Amanda Serrano has fought Edina Kiss and Daniela Romina Bermudez in her showcase homeland bouts.
Top Rank expects to offer the bout to Baraou and see what transpires.
Despite the sentiment among many fight insiders that he would be an underdog, Zayas has expressed interest in fights against unbeaten WBC interim 154lbs champion Vergil Ortiz Jnr and WBC champion Sebastian Fundora, who defends his belt October 25 in Las Vegas versus former unified welterweight champion Keith Thurman.
Ortiz fights two weeks later against veteran title challenger Erickson Lubin in Texas.
