Eye of The Tiger Management tried until the very end to make a deal for an ordered title eliminator.

Thursday’s purse bid hearing revealed why the other side wasn’t as eager to agree to terms.

Yohan Zaoui’s Y12 Boxing won promotional rights to the Christian Mbilli-Kevin Lele Sadjo IBF super middleweight title elimination bout. Y12, Sadjo’s promoter, posted a $878,000 bid to outpace Eye Of The Tiger, who bid $767,000 on behalf of Mbilli.

With the result, the fight will now head to Paris on a yet-to-be-determined date in May.

“See you in May in Paris for this highly anticipated showdown,” Y12 exclaimed after their big haul.

Mbilli (28-0, 23 KOs), The Ring No. 1 super middleweight, is due $526,800 from 60-percent of the bid as the IBF’s No. 3 contender. Sadjo (24-0, 21 KOs) will receive $351,200 from the remaining 40-percent as the IBF No. 6 contender.

The winner of the bout will become the mandatory challenger to IBF 168-pound titlist William Scull (23-0, 9 KOs), The Ring’s No. 5 super middleweight contender. Scull is due a voluntary defense and was mentioned as a potential next opponent for The Ring, WBC, WBA, WBO champion Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez (62-2-2, 39 KOs).

Interestingly, Mbilli was the only other name specified to be in the running by Guadalajara’s Alvarez for a planned May 3 headliner in Las Vegas.

The pair of unbeaten Cameroonian Frenchmen were ordered in early December to begin negotiations for their elimination bout. Both parties asked for more time once the calendar flipped to 2025, citing the holiday season as grounds for more time. The request was granted by the IBF but the extension still couldn’t get the two sides to see eye to eye.

Montreal, Canada’s Mbilli and France’s Sadjo claimed three wins apiece in their respective 2024 campaigns.

Sadjo began his year with an eighth-round stoppage of Giovanni De Carolis on March 9 in Levallois-Perret, France. The feat marked his sixth consecutive stoppage, a streak which ended four months later in a June 9 twelve-round points win over Durval Elias Palacio in Paris.

A return to the knockout column came in a fourth-round stoppage of Argentina’s Diego Chavez in the fourth round on Dec. 14 in Nassau, Bahamas.

Mbilli outboxed former multiple time title challenger Sergiy Derevyanchenko (15-6, 10 KOs) over ten rounds on Aug. 17 in Quebec City, Canada.

It snapped a three-fight knockout streak, which followed a ten-round, unanimous decision over Carlos Gongora (21-1, 16 KOs at the time) last March. Mbilli began his 2024 campaign with a sixth-round knockout of veteran fringe contender Rohan Murdock (27-2 at the time).