By Manouk Akopyan

After holding the first ever boxing fight card at the venerable Banc of California Stadium in August, Top Rank is returning back to the Los Angeles market in November with an ESPN show at the “Ward Grounds.”

WBC junior lightweight champion Miguel Berchelt will defend his title against Jason Sosa on Nov. 2 at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, Calif., a source informed of the negotiations told BoxingScene.com. 

Mexico’s Berchelt (36-1, 32 KOs) will be looking to make his sixth title defense of the WBC crown since seizing the belt when he knocked out then unbeaten Francisco Vargas in 2017. The 27-year old Berchelt defeated Vargas again for good measure this May to prove his first win wasn't a fluke.

Sosa (23-3-4, 16 KOs), a 31-year-old from Camden, New Jersey, is coming off an impressive seventh-round knockout of Haskell Rhodes last month in Philadelphia. Sosa is riding a three-fight winning streak after suffering successive defeats to Yuriorkis Gamboa and Vasiliy Lomachenko in 2017. 

Manouk Akopyan has been a member of the Boxing Writers Assn. of America since 2011 and has written for the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, the Guardian and Philadelphia Inquirer. He can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube at @ManoukAkopyan or via email at manouk.akopyan@gmail.com.