Key points:
- Denzel Bentley’s negotiations with mandatory challenger Yoenli Hernandez have failed, sending the fight to a September 29 purse bid
- Bentley had hoped to face Conor Benn instead, a fight the WBO blocked over Benn’s lack of a middleweight ranking
- The WBO set a $200,000 minimum bid, with the winning promoter controlling the fight if terms can’t be agreed beforehand
- A win over the dangerous Hernandez would also clear Bentley’s path toward a unification with IBF champion Aaron McKenna
Denzel Bentley wanted the Conor Benn payday. The WBO’s given him Yoenli Hernandez instead, and there’s no easy way round it now.
Talks with Hernandez have collapsed, and the fight’s headed to a purse bid on September 29, with a $200,000 minimum set by the sanctioning body – a floor, not a promise of what it’ll actually bring. Bentley had been pushing hard for Benn, a name that would’ve sold a genuine domestic event on its own. WBO president Gustavo Olivieri wasn’t having it, pointing straight at Hernandez’s mandatory status and Benn’s complete absence from the middleweight rankings.
Hernandez is the harder fight by some distance
A two-time amateur world champion, considerably more dangerous than anything Benn brings at this weight, and a much tougher sell to a broadcaster than the fight Bentley actually wanted.
Win it, though, and the McKenna fight’s right there
Bentley’s own unification with IBF champion Aaron McKenna was blocked purely on procedural grounds, not because anyone doubted the fight’s appeal. Get past Hernandez first, and that route opens straight back up.