Ben Shalom of Boxxer has reiterated his desire to see two of his light-heavyweight talents go head to head in the ring and claim a deal has been struck for Olympian Joshua Buatsi and Dan Azeez to face each other later this year with a date yet to be confirmed by Shalom.
In May of this year, at the IBF convention, Boxxer petitioned the IBF and confirmed their intentions of scheduling a contest between the two British fighters and asked the organisation to sanction the contester as an eliminator for its light-heavyweight title currently held by Artur Beterbiev.
Rival promoter Eddie Hearn claimed that he was exploring opportunities to offer Azeez, the unbeaten and current EBU champion, to step up and face WBA light-heavyweight champion Dimitry Bivol with a date likely for September. Hearn had claimed that it was to his knowledge that Azeez was a promotional free agent and did not foresee any issues upcoming other than a “Yes or No” answer to an offer he was preparing to offer Azeez.
Shalom has dismissed Hearn’s claim that Azeez is a free agent and insists that he remains under contract with the Sky Sports-backed promotional outfit and that Buatsi and Azeez had, in fact, to face one another instead.
“Both fighters have agreed to fight each other,” Shalom told Sky Sports. “It’s flattering when other promoters are talking about your fighters, but Dan Azeez is with Boxxer. He’s one of our proudest achievements.
“Finding the fighters that don’t necessarily get those opportunities, the fact we’ve gone from just about British level and come through English, Commonwealth and now he’s even being talked about at world level, it’s an incredible journey.
“The Buatsi fight is one they’ve both agreed to. It’s definitely one that happens this year, which British boxing fans are hugely excited about.”
Shalom is willing to entertain an offer from Hearn and Matchroo but explains that nobody has reached out as of yet.
“Dan Azeez will fight for world titles, as will Joshua Buatsi,” added Shalom.
“The light heavyweight division is on fire. If Matchroom wants to come to us and make an offer for Dan to fight Bivol, we’d consider it at the right time. But we’ve not received any approach.”
