Matchroom Boxing has seized control of a welterweight championship fight previously in the grasp of another company.
BoxingScene.com has learned that Piranha Promotions has surrendered promotional rights for the Jessica McCaskill-Ivana Habazin WBC/WBA welterweight championship. The upstart outfit—privately owned by Charles Muniz, Habazin’s manager—previously bid $201,000 for the fight, which will now land in the hands of Matchroom Boxing as the next highest bidder during the February 7 hearing.
No Smoke Boxing was first to report the development.
Matchroom’s bid of $91,000 is now the recognized purse to be split between McCaskill and Habazin. Per WBC rules, ten-percent ($9,100) will be held escrow as a win bonus. Of the remaining 90 percent, McCaskill is due $57,330—70 percent—of the bid as the defending champion. The remaining 30 percent ($24,570) will go to Habazin as the WBC mandatory challenger.
A date and location are still to be determined for the fight, which will mark McCaskill’s fourth overall title defense. It will be the 38-year-young champion’s first bout since her ten-round defeat to unbeaten Chantelle Cameron in their undisputed junior welterweight championship last November 5 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
It will also be the first for McCaskill since relinquishing both the IBF and WBO titles.
The loss to Cameron was doubly damaging for McCaskill, who dropped down in weight in a bid to become a two-division, undisputed champion. Instead, her welterweight reign was broken up as she was stripped of the IBF title due to a by-law that does not protect reigning titlists who move down in weight to challenge for another belt.
The WBO Championship Committee reviewed the matter per their own by-laws and previously ruled on December 14 that her title reign would remain intact. The belt was since declared vacant and is now at stake for the Sandy Ryan-Marie Pier Houle welterweight clash due to take place on the undercard of the previously announced April 22 DAZN show in Cardiff topped by the Shavkat Rakhimov-Joe Cordina IBF 130-pound title fight.
As a result, McCaskill (12-3, 5KOs) still holds the lineal, WBA and WBC crowns which she claimed in an August 2020 points win over long-reigning champ and pound-for-pound queen Cecilia Braekhus. McCaskill scored a repeat win in their March 2021 rematch, followed by stoppage victories over Kandi Wyatt in December 2021 and—in her most recent bout at welterweight—Alma Ibarra last June 25 in San Antonio, Texas.
Habazin (21-4, 7KOs)—a 33-year-old former champ from Croatia—once upon a time held the IBF welterweight title, doing so on her second try in a March 2014 points win over Sabrina Giuliani in Herstal. Belgium. The reign was short-lived, as Habazin dropped a ten-round decision to Braekhus in their September 2014 fully unification bout which saw Braekhus become the first women’s four-belt undisputed champion.
Habazin has won eight of her last ten bouts since then, with the lone two defeats coming at the championship level. She remains best known for her January 2020 defeat to Claressa ‘GWOAT’ Shields for the vacant WBC and WBO junior middleweight titles.
The two were due to meet in October 2019, only for the event to be canceled after the two camps engaged in a brawl preceding the pre-fight weigh-in. Artis J. Mack, Shields’ brother was arrested for—and subsequently pleaded guilty to—his role in the melee, including his allegedly punching James Ali Bashir, Habazin’s trainer for the fight.
Bashir was hospitalized as a result of the blow but recovered in time to train Habazin for the rescheduled bout.
The 33-year-old Habazin has since rebounded with a ten-round victory over Diana Prazak last October 22 in Zabok, Croatia. The win came with the WBC Silver welterweight title at stake, the belt more symbolic of Habazin advancing to the mandatory challenger position.
McCaskill previously held the WBC and WBA junior welterweight titles, winning the belts in back-to-back victories over reigning titlists Erica Farias and Anahi Ester Sanchez. Both fights trailed her ten-round defeat to Katie Taylor in their December 2017 WBA lightweight title fight. All three title fights were promoted by Matchroom, along with the entirety of McCaskill’s welterweight title reign as well as her fight with Cameron.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox