The Top Rank and Premier Boxing Champions teams will return to negotiations after being given extra time to conclude a deal between their clients. Negotiations are ongoing for a WBC light heavyweight title fight between reigning champion Artur Beterbiev, who also holds the IBF belt, and mandatory challenger Marcus Browne. WBC officials confirmed the news on Wednesday.
The organizer of this bout was to be determined at a promoter's bids this Friday at the sanctioning body's headquarters in Mexico City, but it has been postponed until September 28.
WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman said both sides have requested an extension of negotiations in hopes of reaching an agreement. Beterbiev (16-0, 16 KOs) is a Top Rank client while Browne (24-1, 16 KOs) fights under the Premier Boxing Champions (PBC) banner and is represented in negotiations by TGB Promotions.
The fight was scheduled for Aug. 19, and both sides were given a standard 30-day negotiation period to work out the terms of the deal. Top Rank and TGB were also in talks for another fight in the same time frame, a welterweight clash between WBO champion Terence Crawford (37-0, 28 KOs) and former two-time champion Shawn Porter (31-3-1, 17 KOs), the mandatory challenger. The two sides reached an agreement on Tuesday, hours before the rescheduled bidы after an allotted twelve-day delay.
After the pandemonium, Beterbiev and Browne fought just once each. Beterbiev stopped Adam Deines in the tenth round this March in Russia. Thus, the Montreal boxer fulfilled his commitment to defend his IBF title, which was originally scheduled to take place against Meng Fanlong.
Another unification fight was originally planned, in which Beterbiev hoped to make a unification with recently crowned WBO titleholder Joe Smith Jr. That fight didn't happen, prompting the WBC to commit Beterbiev to face its number one contender.
Browne returned to the ring this April, defeating Denis Grachev in the tenth round. The bout was the first for Browne since he was defeated by a unanimous technical decision in the fight against Jean Pascal in August 2019.
If a deal is reached between the parties, this will be the third fight this fall between the Top Rank and PBC fighters. In addition to Crawford-Porter on November 20, the two sides are working together again on a trilogy between WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury (30-0-1, 21 KOs) and former longtime WBC titleholder Deontay Wilder. Their fight is slated to be the main event of the Oct. 9 night, co-hosted by ESPN+ and Fox Sports.
