Today, it was made official that
Osleys Iglesias and
Vladimir Shishkin will meet in an
IBF super middleweight title eliminator on Sept. 4 for the right to be the mandatory challenger.
The Eye of the Tiger event will take place at Montreal Casino in Montreal, Canada.
In co-feature, lightweight
Dzmitry Asanau (10-0, 4 KOs) will defend his regional WBC belt against a yet-to-be-determined opponent.
Meanwhile, there will also be appearances from super middleweight
Moreno Fendero (11-0, 9 KOs), middleweight Alexandre Gaumont (13-0, 9 KOs), junior welterweight Wyatt Sanford (3-0, 2 KOs), lightweight Avery Martin Duval (13-0-1, 7 KOs) and junior lightweight Erik Israyelyan (2-0, 2 KOs). Their opponents will be announced later, too.
Iglesias (13-0, 12 KOs), rated at
No. 3 by The Ring at super middleweight, was a talented amateur in his native Cuba before turning professional in Germany in 2019. In just his sixth fight, he dominated faded former two-time world title challenger Isaac Chilemba (UD 12).
The 27-year-old southpaw caught the eye stopping Ezequiel Maderna (KO 1), Andrii Velikovskyi (TKO 10) and Artur Reis (KO 4) before scoring first-round knockouts of respected Marcelo Coceres and Evgeny Shvendenko after he began fighting in Canada. Sena Agbeko made it out of the opening round but was quickly vanquished in the second, while Petro Ivanov was able to last until the fifth.
Shishkin (16-1, 10 KOs), rated at No. 8 by The Ring at super middleweight, turned professional in 2016. He's managed to show his class by stopping Nadjib Mohammedi (TKO 10), DeAndre Ware (TKO 8) and then-unbeaten Ulises Sierra (UD 10).
The 33-year-old has also dominated then once-beaten Agbeko (UD 10) on ShoBox and outpointed former IBF titlist Jose Uzcategui (UD 12). He has spent time treading water beating a pair of journeymen before coming up short against
William Scull (UD 12) for the vacant IBF title in October.
Questions and/or comments can be sent to Anson at elraincoat@live.co.uk and you can follow him on X @AnsonWainwr1ght