Ilunga Makabu lost his WBC cruiserweight belt to Badou Jack in February 2022. However, when Jack looked to step up in weight, the title became vacant, and Makabu was presented with an opportunity to face Noel Mikaelian for the vacant title.

While both fighters fought on away soil, Makabu felt as though he wasn’t treated equally and that the lay of the land was tilted in Mikaelian’s favour.

In preparation, Makabu spent two months in his training camp at the Jur Boxing gym in Oradea, Romania, and also in Sânmartin, near the Hungarian border, with head trainer Damian Durandt and the rest of his team.

"My preparation was done perfectly with seriousness and rigour, without leaving anything to chance," Makabu told The Ring. "Every sparring partner was quality, our team complete. Everything seemed to be going well for me to recover my WBC cruiserweight title."

However, while training camp went well, Makabu encountered problems travelling to America because of complications with his visa. He flew from Oradea to Bucharest five days before the fight and had to stay at a hotel for two more days while he waited on his visa.

Once he received the visa, he boarded a plane to Istanbul and stayed at the airport for six hours because his plane was delayed. He finally arrived in Miami the morning before the weigh-in and had to stay awake until the evening to stave off the initial jet lag.

"We arrived very late because of the visa for the USA that Junior was supposed to receive," explained Makabu's manager, Tarik Saadi. "I don't know what went wrong within Don King Promotions, you'll have to ask them. But one thing we know is that we fought more than the fight to receive this visa, which seems incredible to me because DKP's lawyer was in charge of this since the end of August for November.

"Hence this was a big surprise for our entire team since Junior had already fought in the USA [against Thabiso Mchunu in January 2022] and everything had gone well.

"So, we were leaving with a very difficult challenge to achieve. I was in Paris and did not want to go to the USA, but Junior asked me to accompany him because he wanted to show the whole world how he had been treated for this world title fight in his capacity as co-challenger and former world champion of this same title.

"He told me, 'We are a team and don't back down from anything or anyone.' So, I took my flight from Charles de Gaulle, and we all found ourselves in Miami only 20 hours before the official weigh-in."

At the weigh-in both were comfortably inside the division limit of 200 pounds. Mikaelian came in at 196½, while Makabu was a little heavier at 197¾.

"I was on weight as always. We are a professional team, even if we come from Africa," Makabu said. "I felt tired and very disappointed with how we had been treated and wanted to finish as quickly as possible to gain perspective."

The fight didn't last long. Makabu was dropped in the second round, and stopped a round later. Understandably, the former champion was devastated by what happened. Saadi, his long-time manager, told him the damage done in the previous few days had caught up.

"I tried to explain to Junior that no one on this planet can fight jet lag, and that the body, when it decides that it's stopping, then the eyes close and good night," Saadi said.

"It's not the fault of our opponent, who has no responsibility for what happened. And I can't as a professional manager take away the work done by the coach and the opposing team. Except that we were not in the same conditions, which gave the result that everyone saw that evening."

Subsequently, Mikaelian was due to make a mandatory defense against Ryan Rozicki, but it didn’t happen. Jack was declared the WBC's 'Champion in Recess' in October before their December convention in Hamburg, Germany. There, a move was made for Jack and Mikaelian to switch places.

Jack was mandated to face Rozicki, only for the Canadian to suffer an injury and be replaced by Mikaelian. The two met on May 5 in Riyadh, Jack winning a disputed majority decision over 12 rounds.

However, Mikaelian lodged an appeal, citing the controversial nature of the scoring and that was subsequently upheld by the WBC. The two sides agreed to a deal before the July 15 deadline, but a month later, their proposed rematch has no confirmed date or venue.

Meanwhile, Makabu is returning from a 13-month layoff. He will face Charles Manyuchi on Aug. 23 in The Congo, as he looks to rebound.