Miguel Berchelt to face Jonathan Victor Barros on June 23rd

Miguel Berchelt will not be fighting mandatory challenger Mickey Roman next. He won’t even be fighting a full-time super featherweight.

ESPN Deportes reports that “El Alacran” will make the third defense of his title on June 23rd against Jonathan Victor Barros in Mexico, though they’ve yet to finalize an exact location. A fight with Roman will become, well, mandatory afterwards.

Barros (41-5-1, 22 KO) has split his time between 126 and 130 pounds for a while and is coming off a wide decision loss to Lee Selby. His best wins, over Roman, Celestino Caballero, and Satoshi Hosono, all came at featherweight.

It’s a bad look for Berchelt (33-1, 29 KO), who was last seen drubbing an overmatched Maxwell Awuku. He doesn’t even have the excuse of coming off an injury this time. Barros has only been stopped once, but there are so many worthier contenders that it’s bizarre to see Berchelt swerve a very beatable mandatory to take such a soft defense.

Especially when the super featherweight division is ostensibly his for the taking after Vasyl Lomachenko’s move to 135.