By Jake Donovan
Brandon Figueroa is ready for the first defense of his secondary title.
The unbeaten super bantamweight from Weslaco, Tex. will headline the August 24 edition of Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) on FS1, as he will take on Argentina’s Javier Nicolas Chacon. A location has yet to be announced for the matchup, which was confirmed during Wednesday’s episode of FS1’s Inside PBC Boxing.
Figueroa (19-0, 14KOs)—whose older brother Omar Jr. is a former lightweight title and current unbeaten welterweight—claimed a secondary portion of the 122-pound title with an 8th round knockout of Yonfrez Parejo this past April live in primetime on free-to-air Fox.
The bout marked the latest step in his aggressively advanced career, coming just three months after scoring a 3rd round knockout of former title challenger Moises Flores in their title eliminator this past January.
In beating Parejo, Figueroa picked up a secondary version of the title owned by Daniel Roman who became a unified titlist just six days later in his Fight of the Year-level 12-round war with TJ Doheny this past April.
Roman fights for sports streaming service DAZN, while Figueroa fights under adviser Al Haymon’s PBC banner. The alignment doesn’t necessarily preclude the two sides from doing business together—for example, Haymon-advised Tomoki Kameda will face unbeaten 122-pound titlist Rey Vargas in the July 13 DAZN headliner.
However, Figueroa will remain on this side of the tracks for now as he and his older brother have long served as PBC favorites. He will also be the heavy betting favorite versus Chacon (29-4-1, 9KOs), a 38-year old fringe contender who has won four straight since a July 2017 knockout loss to then-unbeaten contender Isaac Dogboe, who has since won and lost a 122-pound title of his own.
Of Chacon’s other three losses, two came on the title stage. The fringe contender dropped a 12-round loss to the excellent Anselmo Moreno in March 2014. The bout was the 11th and final successful title defense of Moreno’s six-year bantamweight title reign.
Later that year, Chacon hit the road for a Nov. 2014 bantamweight title challenge of Jamie McDonnell in England. He held his own for eight rounds before suffering a fluke shoulder injury in round nine and was stopped one round later.
The full undercard and the exact location for the August 24 show is expected to be revealed in the coming weeks.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
