Featherweights Miguel Marriaga and Guy Robb will meet in a world title elimination bout Aug. 27 at the Churchill County Fairgrounds in Fallon, Nevada, Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti told ESPN.com on Thursday.
The fight will headline Top Rank’s “Solo Boxeo Tecate” card (UniMas, 11 p.m. ET/PT), with the winner earning a mandatory world title fight against the winner of the Oscar Valdez-Matias Adrian Rueda bout, which will take place on the Terence Crawford-Viktor Postol undercard July 23 (HBO PPV) at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Valdez (19-0, 17 KOs) and Rueda (26-0, 23 KOs) will meet for the 126-pound world title recently vacated by Vasyl Lomachenko, who moved up in weight and knocked out Roman “Rocky” Martinez in the fifth round June 11 to win a junior lightweight world title.
Marriaga (23-1, 19 KOs), of Colombia, fought for a vacant featherweight world title last June but lost a unanimous decision to Nicholas Walters, who had been stripped of the belt the day before the fight for failing to make weight.
Since the loss, Marriaga, 29, has won three fights in a row, albeit against nondescript opposition.
The 27-year-old Robb (18-1, 8 KOs), of Sacramento, California, has won 11 fights in a row since a seventh-round knockout loss to Joel Diaz Jr. in a meeting of prospects in January 2012.
“Marriaga came back from the loss to Walters by winning. He earned his way back by being active and getting three wins in a row,” Moretti said. “Robb is a guy who really, really wants this opportunity to fight for the No. 1 position.”
The Marriaga-Robb winner probably will not get the title fight in the next bout because the mandatory title fight won’t be due yet.
“Whether it’s the next fight or not, this fight is on national TV, and it will create some interest in the winner fighting the Valdez-Rueda winner,” Moretti said. “People will see it, and you build up the title fight when it is due.”
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