Another title fight scheduled by the IBF will stop the negotiation period.
The Ring has confirmed that the Anthony Cacace-Eduardo Núnez IBF 130 fight will take place on June 11. The decision was made at the request of Núnez’s team, in its right to comply with the mandatory title fight order.
“On May 23, 2024, the IBF ordered Anthony Cacace and Eduardo Núnez to begin negotiations,” IBF president Daryl Peoples informed all registered promoters in a letter obtained by The Ring. “May 28, 2024 Juan Carlos Torres [of BXSTRS Promotions] representative Eduardo Núnez as promoter and Matchroom Boxing requested an immediate bid for the fund because the agreement was not reached.”
Dan Rafael of Fight Freak Unite was the first to report the development.
A negotiation period of 30 days was previously given for the title fight that was ordered. That call came five days after Cacace knocked out Joe Cordina in the eighth round on May 18 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Cacace (22-1, 8 knockouts), Ring’s No. 5-rated junior lightweight, presented his best performance on the big stage to date. The fight took place on the Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury undercard. Cordina (17-1, 9 KOs) entered the fight on the hook to honor the mandatory defense with the win. That responsibility has now passed to Cacace, who has won seven in a row.
Núnez (27-1, 27 KOs) entered the first round with an eleventh round knockout of former titleholder Shavkatdzhon Rakhimov. Their February 16 title decider saw Núnez hit the road to wear down and stop Rakhimov (17-2-1, 14 KOs) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.
The fight marked the first time that Núnez went past the tenth round. He didn’t need much longer than that, however, to close the deal. The win extended his current streak to seventeen fights and one final appearance.
Cacace and Núnez are obligated to commit to the fight, according to IBF rules regarding mandatory title defenses.
Failure of any IBF titleholder to honor the mandatory defense will result in their title being stripped. Likewise, challengers who leave the program will be ineligible to participate in any IBF-sanctioned fight for at least six months. In addition, such a failure of the competitor will also result in him being promoted outside the top ten of the IBF.
News of the purse bid comes less than 24 hours after the Canelo Alvarez-William Scull 168-pound champion met a similar fate. As previously reported by The Ring, a hearing for that fight has been scheduled for June 6, per Scull’s team’s request to end the negotiation period.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for The Ring and vice president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.
