Hekkie Budler, Felix Alvarado join July 5th purse bid party

July 5th is getting kinda packed.

A third IBF championship purse bid has joined James Degale vs. Jose Uzcategui and Sergiy Derevyanchenko vs. Daniel Jacobs, as unified IBF/WBA “Super” light flyweight champion Hekkie Budler and challenger Felix Alvarado could not come to terms within the allotted time.

Budler (32-3, 10 KO) bounced back from a tough split decision loss to Milan Melindo in a big way last month, upsetting Ryoichi Taguchi by a single point in hostile territory. The fight was his fourth at light flyweight after losing his minimumweight belt to Byron Rojas.

He faces another Nicaraguan in Alvarado (33-2, 29 KO), who is 15-0 with 14 KOs over marginal opposition since consecutive losses to Kazuto Ioka and Juan Carlos Reveco. He can clearly punch, but his only win of note is a third-round knockout of former title challenger Teeraphong Utaida in 2017.