The EBU have announced that Ryan Garner has vacated his junior lightweight throne and have acted swiftly to match Jaouad Belmedhi and Josh Padley to fill the vacancy.

The two sides have until November 3 to come to an agreement. Failure to do so will see the fight go to a purse bid at noon that day at the EBU offices in Rome, Italy.

Garner won the EBU title on March 1, outboxing Salvador Jimenez en route to a 12-round shutout points win to headline Queensberry's Bournemouth show. He made one defence, stopping British champion Reece Bellotti in the final round of their July 26 matchup.

However, rather than face official challenger Belmedhi, he elected to hand back the title while his promoter Queensberry plot his next move. As reported by The Ring's Dec Taylor last month, the 27-year-old is being manoevured towards world honours with his beloved St. Mary's Stadium already booked for a stadium date in mind after one more fight.

Belmedhi (23-2-3, 11 KOs) has been a professional since 2017. The Frenchman drew three of his first 10 fights before later winning domestic honours at 135-pounds.

He lost his unbeaten record in a first-round TKO defeat by Gary Cully in October 2022, rebounding with seven straight wins before a 10-round points loss by Can Xu on August 15.

Padley (17-1, 5 KOs) turned professional in 2019 and appeared on small hall shows in the north of England, winning his first 14 outings.

The 29-year-old took on the bigger, heavily-favoured Mark Chamberlain on the Daniel Dubois-Anthony Joshua undercard last September and dropped the Portsmouth puncher on the way to scoring a 10-round upset decision win.

Although a promotional deal was not forthcoming afterwards, he answered a short-notice call to face WBC lightweight kingpin Shakur Stevenson, who stopped him in nine rounds.

Matchroom rewarded him for a spirited showing with a full-time contract, allowing the Yorkshireman to focus on his boxing career and leave his day job as an electrician. Since then, he has won two fights, including a 10-round decision win over Bellotti on Oct. 11.