AGON Sports has done it again.

The Germany-based promotional company secured promotional rights to the Bakhram Murtazaliev-Jack Culcay vacant IBF junior middleweight title fight. AGON—Culcay’s promoter—submitted $666,300 to outpace TGB Promotions’ $500,000 bid for the ordered matchup.  

A $66,630 deposit was submitted with the winning bid. An additional ten-percent deposit—totaling 20 percent of the bid—is required within the next five business days to further validate the purse bid result.

The fight will likely land in Germany. Boxing Scene has learned that one explored scenario is for the vacant title bout to take place on April 6 in Berlin. That could be an issue. Murtazaliev is a devout Muslim and eager to fight for his first major title by no later than March 9, prior to Ramadan which is observed this year from March 10-April 9.

The winner of the forthcoming bout will claim the IBF junior middleweight title vacated last November by Jermell Charlo (35-2-1, 19KOs), who still holds the WBA and WBC titles and remains the recognized lineal champion.

The development ended a three-year period where Murtazaliev—who was the mandatory challenger since November 2019—accepted step-aside packages and non-televised undercard slots while Charlo further unified the division.

Charlo ran out of exceptions after his failed bid versus undisputed super middleweight champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez (60-2-2, 39KOs) on September 30 in Las Vegas. The fight already cost him the WBO 154-pound title, which he had to give up the moment he entered the ring for the Showtime Pay-Per-View event. The WBO agreed to acknowledge him as the undisputed champion until the pre-fight introductions, at which point Tim Tszyu (23-0, 16KOs) was elevated from interim to full WBO titleholder.

Russia’s Murtazaliev (22-0, 15KOs) became the mandatory after a November 2019 win over Jorge Fortea in their title eliminator. He has since fought four times, all buried on Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) non-televised undercards and versus non-descript competition.

Culcay (33-4, 14KOs) has won eight in a row since his return to the junior middleweight division.

The former secondary titlist lost to Demetrius Andrade in their March 2017 WBA 'Regular' junior middleweight title fight. A loss to then-unbeaten Maciej Sulecki seven months later sent Culcay to the middleweight division, where he won three in a row before a twelve-round loss to Sergiy Derevyanchenko in their April 2019 IBF middleweight title eliminator in Minneapolis.

A return to 154 and to Germany has seen Culcay resurface atop the IBF rankings, though mostly versus middling opposition.

Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. X (formerly Twitter): @JakeNDaBox