Anthony Cacace Ordered by IBF to Defend Belt Towards Eduardo Nunez

Congratulations in your new title. Now, battle this knockout machine.

That’s what the IBF successfully mentioned on Thursday, ordering its new junior light-weight titleholder Anthony Cacace of Northern Eire to right away start negotiations along with his obligatory title contender, Eduardo Nunez.

The Matchroom-promoted Nunez (26-1, 26 KOs), of Mexico, is coming off a second-round TKO of former featherweight title contender Oscar Escandon on Oct. 28, and was already the obligatory for former titleholder Joe Cordina, earlier than Cordina was stopped within the eighth spherical by Cacace on Saturday on the Oleksandr Usyk-Tyson Fury card in Saudi Arabia.

Cacace (22-1, 8 KOs) “inherits the obligatory obligation of the earlier champion … which states that ought to the title [change] palms on account of a voluntary protection, then the brand new champion shall inherit the obligatory obligation and should defend inside the time remaining for the champion from whom he gained the title,” the IBF Champions Chairman Carlos Ortiz Jr. wrote to Cacace promoter Queensberry.

Ortiz wrote that negotiations must be concluded by June 22, and if an settlement can’t be made by then, the IBF will conduct a handbag bid.

He hooked up an IBF rule stating that “a champion’s failure to adjust to this obligation can be enough trigger to have the championships committee and board of administrators think about withdrawing recognition of the title.”

Cacace, 35, loved a hero’s homecoming this week, and now he has to maneuver on to the sobering enterprise of the game and a possible matchup in opposition to a relentless energy puncher craving to take the prize he simply so not too long ago collected.