Skye Nicolson is headed home.
The unbeaten WBC featherweight titlist is tabbed to next defend her crown on a Matchroom Boxing show being planned for March. The exact date and location will be announced next week, but Nicolson (12-0, 1 KO) will face mandatory challenger Tiara Brown (17-0, 11 KOs) in a scheduled ten-round bout.
Sydney is in the running to land the show but not yet finalized, according to Matchroom Boxing chairman Eddie Hearn. As previously reported by The Ring’s Keith Idec, former Ring/unified lightweight champion George Kambosos Jr. will headline the event.
Nicolson, The Ring’s No. 1 featherweight contender, will attempt her third title defense, while she returns to Australia for the first time since Oct. 2022.
The 2020 Olympic quarterfinalist for Australia previously held the interim version but demanded to fight for the full version rather than become “an email champion.” The WBC granted her wish, as Nicolson dominated former IBF titlist Sarah Mahfoud over ten rounds last April 1 in Las Vegas.
Nicolson crammed in two more defenses in a productive 2023 run. Her most recent came in a watershed moment as the first-ever women’s title fight to take place on a Riyadh Season show. Nicolson rose to the occasion in a lopsided win over unbeaten Raven Chapman (9-0 at the time) last Oct. 12 in Riyadh.
The fight took place two years almost to the day of her lone pro appearance on home soil. Nicolson—a Yatala native who trains in England—was part of Matchroom’s Oct. 2022 Australia launch show in Brisbane. She fought her first ten-rounder that night as she soundly outpointed Krystina Jacobs.
Brown entered the mix after a ten-round win over Gabriela Bouvier (20-14-1, 4 KOs) last June 24 in Atlanta, Georgia. The sanctioned eliminator put Brown in line as one of two consecutive mandatories for Nicolson, as standard protocol when you win a vacant WBC title.
Jake Donovan is part of the U.S. team for The Ring. Follow Jake on X and Instagram.