Janibek Alimkhanuly is nearly set for a long-awaited homecoming headliner.

All he needs is an opponent to go along with the date and location.

The Ring has learned that Alimkhanuly (16-0, 11 KOs) will defend his IBF and WBO middleweight titles atop an April 5 show in Astana, Kazakhstan. The event provides Top Rank with a nice one-two punch for the day, as ESPN platforms will carry this event ahead of a planned show later that evening stateside from The Palms Casino in Las Vegas.

A challenger is still sought for Alimkhanuly’s first title fight at home, despite erroneous reports from multiple outlets suggesting that unbeaten middleweight Shakiel Thompson (13-0, 7 KOs)—currently scheduled to fight Feb. 7 in Sheffield, England—would land the shot.

As reported by The Ring, Thompson was contacted by Alimkhanuly’s team for a potential fight. However, the two sides remained too far apart to where it was assumed he would land the assignment.

Alimkhanuly, The Ring’s No. 1 middleweight, has fought in his home country just twice as a pro. Both came in his first two fights, the latter which took place in Sept. 2017. The 31-year-old southpaw from Zhilandy, Kazakhstan—who is now based out of Oxnard, California—spent his next 13 fights stateside, all under Top Rank’s promotional banner.

The lone fight in any other location came in his most recent appearance, which was rescheduled from a planned Vegas headliner last summer.

Alimkhanuly was ordered to face then-unbeaten IBF mandatory Andrei Mikhailovich (22-0 at the time). They were due to meet on July 13, but the title fight was canceled during fight week when Alimkhanuly was hospitalized due to dehydration.

The delay was enough to send the ordered fight back to a purse bid. No Limit Boxing, Mikhailovich’s promoter, won the rights to the fight which forced Alimkhanuly to travel to Sydney, Australia. The road trip mattered little; Alimkhanluly manhandled Mikhailovich en route to a ninth-round knockout in an Oct. 4 title defense with just the IBF belt at stake.

Alimkhanuly won an interim version of the WBO middleweight title with a May 2022 second-round knockout of Danny Dignum. He was advanced to full titlist after Demetrius Andrade opted to abandon the division in favor of a run at super middleweight.

The IBF belt was claimed by Alimkhanuly courtesy of a sixth-round knockout of Vincent Gualtieri in their Oct. 2023 unification bout between unbeaten titlists in Rosenberg, Texas.

Alimkhanuly is currently in the voluntary title defense phase with both the IBF and WBO.