Sergiy Derevyanchenko and Daniel Jacobs head to July 5th purse bid

Unable to make headway with Eddie Hearn, Lou DiBella petitioned the IBF for an immediate purse bid for the ordered middleweight title fight between Sergiy Derevyanchenko and Daniel Jacobs. They assented and scheduled it for July 5th at noon Eastern. The fighters will receive a 50/50 split.

Derevyanchenko (12-0, 10 KO) has been the IBF mandatory since demolishing Tureano Johnson last August. He stayed busy in March with a sixth-round stoppage of journeyman and UFC veteran Dashon Johnson on the undercard of Deontay Wilder vs. Luis Ortiz

Jacobs (34-2, 29 KO) was in talks to face Canelo Alvarez before Alvarez’s team finally managed to hammer out a rematch between him and Gennady Golovkin. The “Miracle Man” is 2-0 since his March 2017 defeat to Golovkin, taking decisions over previously unbeaten Luis Arias and Maciej Sulecki.

If this fight comes together, whoever wins has an extremely solid claim to being the second-best middleweight on the planet, and we can only hope either Billy Joe Saunders or the GGG-Canelo II winner sees that IBF belt and decides to have a go.