We have the draw for the two announced divisions in the second season of the World Boxing Super Series slated for this fall. Soon to be launched streaming service DAZN will carry the tournament in the United States.
The World Boxing Super Series team has slowly been announcing its participating fighters for the second season day by day, but I’ve chosen to ignore it until we have a complete field to report back on. Now we do. The two tournaments will take place at junior welterweight and bantamweight while featuring multiple world titleholders. The bantamweight division is particularly loaded, though unfortunately it will be one belt short of bringing complete divisional unification like season one did at cruiserweight.
Let’s take a look at the draws, beginning with the first round at junior welterweight:
#1 Regis Prograis (22-0, 19 KOs) v Terry Flanagan (33-1, 13 KOs)
#4 Ivan Baranchyk (18-0, 11 KOs) v Anthony Yigit (21-0-1, 7 KOs)
#2 Josh Taylor (13-0, 11 KOs) v Ryan Martin (22-0, 12 KOs)
#3 Kiryl Relikh (22-2, 19 KOs) v Eduard Troyanovsky (27-1, 24 KOs)
Relikh v Troyanovsky and Baranchyk v Yigit were dictated by the WBA and IBF respectively, with the latter being for the vacant IBF belt and Troyanovsky being Relikh’s mandatory challenger for his WBA title. This means a couple things. For one, the winner of the tournament will emerged a unified, two belt junior welterweight titleholder. Second, top seeded Regis Prograis only had either Terry Flanagan or Ryan Martin to choose from in self determining his first round opponent. He took the bigger name in Terry Flanagan.
How does this tournament stack up? Let’s go to the S8C Top 25 Junior Welterweight rankings to assess. Currently I have Josh Taylor at #2, Kiryl Relikh at #4, Regis Prograis #5, Eduard Troyanovsky #10, Terry Flanagan #13, Anthony Yigit #14, Ivan Baranchyk #20, and Ryan Martin unranked. That’s a good field overall for sure. You can also slide everyone up a slot if you think I shouldn’t have Mikey Garcia still ranked at the weight. I think what most fans are probably hoping for here would be a Regis Prograis and Josh Taylor finals. That would be a spectacular matchup of exciting young, rising stars. Looking at the field, I really do think we see it too. Prograis has a generally straight line route in my view based on the talents involved, though Josh Taylor could have a tricky semifinal fight against the criminally underrated Kiryl Relikh.
Next, the bantamweight quarterfinals:
#1 Ryan Burnett (19-0, 9 KOs) v Nonito Donaire (38-5, 24 KOs)
#4 Emmanuel Rodriguez (18-0, 12 KOs) v Jason Moloney (17-0, 14 KOs)
#2 Naoya Inoue (16-0, 14 KOs) v Juan Carlos Payano (20-1, 9 KOs)
#3 Zolani Tete (27-3, 21 KOs) v Mikhail Aloyan (4-0)
Rodriguez v Moloney is the mandatory defense for the Puerto Rican’s IBF belt, meaning Jason Moloney was off the board for Ryan Burnett’s pick. The Irishman chose the biggest name in the field, Filipino former elite pound for pound contender Nonito Donaire. The 35 year old Donaire has not made bantamweight since 2011, so we’ll see how he looks at the weight, or if he can even make it. Japanese superstar Naoya Inoue chose former titleholder Juan Carlos Payano next, meaning Zolani Tete was left with Russian amateur star but professional novice Mikhail “Misha” Aloyan as his default option.
Let’s check the S8C Top 25 Bantamweight rankings to see how we’re doing in this field. Of note, I still controversially have drug cheat and weight misser Luis Nery ranked in the top spot. If that bothers you, mentally move everyone up a slot here. Anyway, I have Ryan Burnett ranked #2, Naoya Inoue #3, Juan Carlos Payano #4, Zolani Tete #6 Emmanuel “Manny” Rodriguez #9, Jason Moloney #13, Misha Aloyan #19, and Nonito Donaire #6 up at super bantamweight. Clearly, this is a loaded field. In addition to Manny Rodriguez’s aforementioned IBF belt, Ryan Burnett and Zolani Tete bring the WBA and WBO belts respectively. This means we are a vacant WBC belt away from divisional unification. In a dream world the Mexican sanctioning body would go ahead and sanction Inoue v Payano for the vacant belt to fix this, but there has been no indication that this is anywhere near likely.
All in all the junior welterweight field is good and the bantamweight field is great. As covered recently, soon to be launched sports streaming service DAZN will be carrying the tournament stateside (in addition to thirty two cards from mega-promoter Eddie Hearn and Matchroom Boxing and Bellator MMA shows) for $9.99/month. The World Boxing Super Series has also gone on record to state there will be a third weight class in season two, but they’ve been coy about what it is. Whether that means they are working on something big or are delaying announcing something lesser is anyone’s guess at this point. We can expect the quarterfinals in the fall, the semifinals after the turn of the new year, and the finals around the spring. Those dates can be delayed due to circumstance, of course, as has been the case with both season one finals.
