Jason Welborn gives up his British middleweight title
Frank Warren has issued a statement that Jason Welborn (24-6-2 7KOs) has now vacated his British middleweight title that he was due to defend against Mark Heffron (21-, 17KOs) on the Warrington v Frampton card on December 22nd.
The Hall of Fame promoter stated: "We are disappointed to learn that Jason Welborn has today relinquished his British middlweight title he was set to defend against Mark Heffron.
"Mark Heffron will challenge for the title against an opponent to be announced soon."
Strong rumours are circulating that Welborn will be used as a warm up fight for unified super-welterweight champion Jarrett Hurd on the undercard of Deontay Wilder vs Tyson Fury on December 1 in LA.
Welborn took to his Instagram account to confirm he had given up his Lonsdale belt in place of a bigger opportunity: Just to put it out there yes I have vacated the british due to having BIG NEWS COMING SOON!!! #teamwelborn#myyear
The 32-year-old won the British belt on his third attempt against local rival Tommy Langford on May 4 in a fight that was recently awarded 'Contest of the Year 2018' by the BBBofC.
Their rematch was on September 8 at the Birmingham Arena, live on Sky Sports, and ended up trumping the first encounter with two knockdowns for the challenger Langford, who bravely came back to dominate the rest of the contest but lost out on one single point – for the second time.
Heffron was immediately installed as the mandatory challenger for Welborn, but will now be facing a new opponent for the vacant Lord Lonsdale belt. With former titleholder, Langford, rumoured to be moving up in weight to super-middle, the favourite in the runnings is now Northern Ireland’s Conrad Cummings.