Key points:
- WBO orders Bentley to face mandatory challenger Yoenli Hernandez
- All-British-and-Irish unification with Aaron McKenna put on hold
- Bentley’s appeal for a voluntary defence rejected
Denzel Bentley’s first defence of the WBO middleweight world title is set, and it is the toughest assignment available to him. The Battersea man has been ordered to face unbeaten Cuban mandatory challenger Yoenli Hernandez, and the fight everyone on this side of the Irish Sea wanted has been pushed back.
The unification that was on the table
For three weeks it looked like the easiest big fight in British boxing to make.
Bentley holds the WBO belt. Aaron McKenna, the Monaghan man who lit up the 3Arena last month, holds the IBF. Two world champions from these islands, two titles, both camps interested, and a natural stadium event on either side of the water.
Terms had been discussed. The fight was close.
The mandatory nobody could move
The WBO had other ideas, and the reason goes back further than Bentley does.
Hernandez’s mandatory position dates to Janibek Alimkhanuly’s reign – the same Janibek whose failed drugs test emptied the IBF title McKenna went on to win. It has been outstanding for more than two years.
WBO president Gustavo Olivieri initially indicated on 23 August that Bentley would be allowed one voluntary defence first. That was the window the McKenna fight was going to fit through.
Hernandez’s adviser Luis DeCubas Sr, working alongside Premier Boxing Champions, appealed. The WBO reconsidered, and the window closed.
Bentley’s manager Martin Bowers argued that the nine-month clock should have started when his fighter was elevated to full champion on 20 July, not carried over from a previous champion’s obligations. The committee did not agree.
How Bentley got here
The 31-year-old won the interim title in London in April, stopping Endry Saavedra in the seventh round in front of a home crowd.
On 20 July he was elevated to full WBO champion when Alimkhanuly vacated to campaign at super-middleweight. Seven weeks later, he has his first defence – and it is against the man the entire division has been finding reasons to avoid.
The Cuban problem
Hernandez is unbeaten, southpaw, and a counterpuncher of the type that makes champions look ordinary.
He came through Francisco Daniel Veron by majority decision on the Lopez-Romero card in Las Vegas last month, and he sits behind only Erislandy Lara in the WBA’s rankings at the weight as well. Two governing bodies have him at the front of the queue, which is rarely an accident.
Beat him, and Bentley is a champion who has cleared the division’s most dangerous contender. The McKenna fight is still there afterwards, and it is worth more.
What happens next
A date has not been announced. Bentley boxes for Frank Warren and Queensberry, Hernandez is with PBC, and if the two sides cannot agree terms the bout goes to purse bid.
McKenna, meanwhile, waits with the IBF belt and a considerable amount of goodwill after Dublin.
The unification is not dead. It has simply acquired a very awkward gatekeeper.