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Ever since his victory over Mario Barrios in February to capture the WBC welterweight title, Ryan Garcia has been calling out potential opponents. Recently, Garcia reported he will be fighting Conor Benn in September, but the matchup has yet to be finalized. Can it still happen or is there another/better matchup for Garcia’s return to the ring?
Oleksandr Usyk has a decision to make: Fight WBC heavyweight mandatory challenger Agit Kabayel or relinquish his belt. If he chooses the latter, what are the options for his next fight? And what about former kickboxing champion Rico Verhoeven, who gave Usyk trouble for 11 rounds before he was stopped in their May 23 bout? Can Verhoeven be a contender or even win a heavyweight boxing match?
Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez is aiming to win a world title in a third division, but how long will it be until he moves up for a dream fight with ESPN’s No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter, Naoya Inoue? It seems like the two are in a collision course for later in the year.
Former junior middleweight and middleweight champion Jermall Charlo last fought in May 2025. After a planned return this May to face Armando Resendiz for the WBA super middleweight title was scratched, Charlo is looking to get back in the ring — and it could happen as soon as July.
Andreas Hale, Nick Parkinson and James Regan weigh in on these topics.
According to Garcia, he wants to defend his WBC welterweight title against Conor Benn on Sept. 12 in Las Vegas. Garcia, 27, made the announcement during an appearance on the Jimmy Fallon show last month. However, there has been no announcement from Garcia’s promoter, Golden Boy Promotions, or Zuffa Boxing, which promotes Benn.
Sources close to the situation have told ESPN that Garcia may be attempting to force the hand of Golden Boy to make the fight, which would be nothing new for the widely popular boxer.
Garcia famously demanded a fight with Gervonta “Tank” Davis in 2023 and went against Golden Boy’s advice to agree to a rehydration clause, along with other concessions, in order to secure the fight. While Garcia made the fight happen and secured the sixth-biggest gate in U.S. boxing history with $22.8 million in ticket sales at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Garcia suffered the first loss of his career when he was stopped with a body shot in the seventh round.
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Garcia and Golden Boy CEO Oscar De La Hoya have had a turbulent relationship over the years, but what complicates this situation further is the ongoing rivalry between De La Hoya and Zuffa Boxing founder Dana White. In order for the fight to happen, White and De La Hoya would have to agree to work together. They have been engaged in a vitriolic war of words over the years, with tensions peaking as White’s Zuffa Boxing attempts to become a major player in the boxing space.
With Zuffa Boxing eschewing working with sanctioning bodies and aiming to have its own world titles recognized, this matter gets complicated even further. If Garcia vs. Benn is to have the WBC title on the line, it needs to sanction the fight. We’ve already seen how this matter played out between the IBF and Zuffa Boxing with Jai Opetaia, who was stripped of his belt by the IBF when he fought for the Zuffa Boxing cruiserweight title against Barndon Glanton in March. This snag could lessen the optimism for Garcia-Benn to take place.
As it stands, there is currently no signed agreement. That doesn’t mean the fight won’t happen, it just means there are still significant hurdles to clear. Money usually resolves these issues, but negotiations could be extremely complicated, to say the least. — Hale
Unified heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk, left, could face WBC mandatory challenger Agit Kabayel next. Mark Robinson/Getty ImagesPossibly not. Usyk will be 40 in January, and he has reported he wants to fight twice more. And there are easier/more interesting ways to top up his retirement funds than facing little-known Kabayel later this year.Usyk’s fellow Ukrainians Vitali and Wladimir Klitschko were both 41 when they had their last fights in 2012 and 2017 respectively. Lennox Lewis was 37 when he bowed out in 2007, while Muhammad Ali was 39 for his last fight in 1981. Ali and Wladimir Klitschko both finished on losses, and Usyk’s team will be looking back on last month’s 11th-round stoppage win over Rico Verhoeven, a fight in which Usyk struggled against a former kickboxing champion in his second professional boxing bout.It certainly wasn’t a vintage performance from the two-division undisputed champion and current unified heavyweight champ, who was behind on one scorecard and level on the other two going into the 11th, before he stopped Verhoeven. Some thought the stoppage decision was controversial, but Verhoeven was hurt and Usyk seemed ready to end the fight . If there is a rematch next, even in the Netherlands — Verhoeven’s home country — Usyk would probably be better prepared and Verhoeven poses less of a risk than Kabayel.Kabayel, Usyk’s WBC mandatory challenger, is in good form after six successive stoppages, including wins over Zhilei Zhang, Frank Sanchez and Arslanbek Makhmudov, who went 12 rounds with former champion Tyson Fury in April.Although Kabayel is not a formidable task given what Usyk has achieved, the champion may decide on a safer route to his looming retirement.”To be honest, I think Usyk will vacate,” Kabayel told TalkSport last week. “I think we have one week to see if Usyk says anything. But my opinion is that Usyk will not want to make the fight for me.”This is the biggest fight we can make right now for boxing. We can sell out a stadium.”Usyk entered the Verhoeven fight as a massive -2500 favorite, according to DraftKings Sportsbook. The odds would be slimmer for a rematch, but still big enough to tempt Usyk into a less risky fight than Kabayel. It might cost Usyk the WBC belt, but Usyk is not chasing belts at this stage of his career and is more about finishing undefeated. — ParkinsonCould we see Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez finally face Naoya Inoue?Trainer Robert Garcia, left, is getting junior bantamweight champion Jesse “Bam” Rodriguez ready to move up to junior featherweights. Photo by Melina Pizano/Getty ImagesRodriguez, the WBA, WBC and WBO junior bantamweight champion, is attempting to become a world champion in a third weight class when he faces WBA bantamweight champion Antonio Vargas on June 13. Rodriguez has been phenomenal since exploding on the scene in 2022, when he defeated Carlos Cuadras for the vacant WBC junior bantamweight title on less than a week’s notice. Since then, he’s decimated the competition (nine wins, six by KO) and soared up ESPN’s pound-for-pound list, where he currently sits at No. 3.While the possibility of collecting titles at 118 pounds is intriguing, there has been a loud push for Rodriguez to move up another weight class and face undisputed junior featherweight champion Inoue. A showdown between ESPN’s No. 1 and No. 3 pound-for-pound fighters would easily be one of the biggest fights in the history of the smaller weight classes, and Rodriguez’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, has pushed for that fight to materialize sooner than later.”The world is awaiting [Inoue vs. ‘Bam’],” Hearn reported recently on DAZN. “Probably outside of [Tyson] Fury-AJ [Anthony Joshua], it’s probably the biggest fight out there.”
Rodriguez’s trainer, Robert Garcia, verified that there are plans for his charge to move up for a fight with Inoue.
“I’m not rushing [the Inoue fight] to happen this year,” Garcia told ESPN on Tuesday. “But I think ‘Bam’ will have just one more fight at 118 pounds, hopefully in October, to get used to the division. Starting in this training camp, we have been moving for him to get bigger and stronger. We are preparing him to go up to 122 pounds to fight Inoue.
“In the smaller weight classes, ‘Bam’ vs. Inoue will be the biggest fight ever. I’m not rushing it, but if it does happen next year, I think it’ll be the biggest fight of the past decade.” — Hale
Jermall Charlo, right, returned after an 18-month layoff to stop Thomas LaManna in six rounds in May 2025 and hasn’t fought since. Sean Michael Ham/TGB PromotionsCharlo hasn’t fought since stopping Thomas LaManna in the sixth round in May 2025. He has been tied to several opponents since, but no fights have come to fruition.In his last fight, Charlo was featured in the co-main event of Caleb Plant’s WBA super middleweight title defense against Armando Resendiz, with the plan being an eventual showdown with Plant, his longtime rival. Charlo held up his end of the bargain, but Resendiz stunned Plant to win a unanimous decision and shred those plans. Charlo had told ESPN that he wanted to fight “three times” in 2025 after the LaManna fight ended a time of inactivity since a November 2023 decision win over Jose Benavidez Jr.
“I want to be busier,” Charlo reported. “I want to fight three times this year. Maybe fight again in August or September and one more time in December.”
Unfortunately, Charlo spent the rest of 2025 on the bench. He was on the cusp of a showdown with Resendiz in May for the WBA super middleweight belt but was pulled from the bout for undisclosed reasons in March and replaced by Jaime Munguia, who went on to defeat Resendiz.
Sources have indicated that reports of Charlo returning to the ring on the undercard of Errol Spence Jr. vs. Tim Tszyu in July are premature. However, there are plans for the former junior middleweight and middleweight champion to return to action in 2026. Whether that is on the Spence-Tszyu card or elsewhere remains to be seen. — Hale
Kickboxer Rico Verhoeven, left, had a good fight against heavyweight champion Oleksandr Usyk until the bout was stopped in Round 11. Photo by Mark Robinson/Getty ImagesAbsolutely. After what he did against Oleksandr Usyk, arguably the best fighter of this generation, there’s no room for anyone to doubt Verhoeven at this point in time. He must be given a chance at another big fight.Verhoeven must choose his next opponent wisely. Considering what worked so well for him against Usyk — using his size and aggression to upset Usyk’s rhythm — he could look to take on an easier fight to get more rounds under his belt.But with his stock so high, he should look to get the biggest name possible. His speed, fitness, stamina and awkwardness as a former kickboxer could serve him well against a bigger, slower opponent such as Zhilei Zhang or Jarrell Miller. Verhoeven’s engine and unique style are his main assets, and he could definitely use that against several heavyweights. Martin Bakole, Jared Anderson, Lawrence Okolie and Murat Gassiev would also be intriguing matchups. A win over one of those fighters would add significant credibility to Verhoeven’s résumé.In terms of the bigger stars, you could see a world where Verhoeven beats Deontay Wilder, who was victorious against Derek Chisora in April but wasn’t quite at his barnstorming best. A clash between the two tall fighters would definitely capture the public’s imagination.There’s a host of highly ranked names who Verhoeven could jag a win against to keep his name in the mix for huge fights. You would fancy him to be in a good fight against anyone in the top 15. — Regan
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