Lucas Browne likely to face Fres Oquendo next

By Boxing News - 03/06/2016 - Comments

browne600By Scott Gilfoid: Well, I hope newly crowned WBA heavyweight campion Lucas “Big Daddy” Browne (24-0, 21 KOs) enjoys his reign as the WBA champion after his 10th round knockout win over Ruslan Chagaev (34-3-1, 21 KOs) last Saturday night at the Colosseum Sport Hall in Grozny, Chechnya, Russia.

It’s looking like Browne will need to defend his title next against 42-year-old Fres Oquendo (37-8, 24 KOs) next unless Browne can get a unification lined up against one of the other heavyweight champions. From what I hear, Oquendo is the mandatory challenger for Browne’s WBA title right now, and it doesn’t look like there’s any way around that fight for the 36-year-old Browne unless he can get a unification clash against one of the other champions like WBC champ Deontay Wilder.

IBO/WBA/WBO heavyweight champion Tyson Fury has a rematch against Wladimir Klitschko in the summer, and if Fury wins that fight, he’s said to be very interested in fighting for the IBF belt against the winner of the April 9 fight between IBF champion Charles Martin and Anthony Joshua.

Browne would seem to be less or a priority for Fury right now given all the various options he has. Fury is also interested in facing Deontay; although I don’t see the interest being nearly as high for Fury as it is to fight the winner of the Martin-Joshua fight. Fury obviously smells money and/or weakness with those two fighters that he can potentially exploit.

44-year-old Shannon Briggs was quick to take to Twitter after Browne’s upset win over Chagaev. Here’s what Briggs said:

“BRIGGS VS BROWNE #LETS GO CHAMP I’M RANKED #VAMOS CAMPEON #WE GOT WORK TO DO CHAMP #LFGC #lucas browne.”

I don’t see why Browne wouldn’t want to face Oquendo. He looked horrible in his loss to Chagaev in July 2014. Oquendo hasn’t fought since then, and he’s been dealing with an injury. I doubt that the time out of the ring has been Oquendo better. Browne would be getting an old and ring rusty Oquendo if he takes that fight next. I think it would be the equivalent of Browne taking a voluntary defense against a bottom ranked contender rather than him facing an actual mandatory. If Browne can’t beat the likes of Oquendo, then he doesn’t deserve to be the WBA “regular” champion. There’s much better contenders in the WBA’s top 15 than Oquendo in my view.

Browne was on his way to losing to Chagaev last Saturday night when he hurt the Russian fighter with a right hand in the 10th round. The shot put Chagaev on the canvas. He got up and was hit by a hard right followed by a left to the head that appeared to shake him to his boots.

The referee Stanley Christodoulou evidently didn’t like the direction the fight was heading in, so he halted the fight at 2:27 of the 10th. Chagaev seemed unhappy with the stoppage, as he was still trying to fight back and was on his feet. Who knows if he would have been able to weather the storm and come back from the knockdown? We’ll never know for sure. Chagaev can definitely appeal to the World Boxing Association to try and get a rematch by saying that the fight was stopped premature. Felix Sturm was able to get a rematch against Fedor Chudinov after losing their first fight and then appealing. If it worked for Sturm, then maybe it’ll work for Chagaev. I’m just saying. Just because you lose doesn’t mean you can’t appeal to the WBA and have them grant you an immediate rematch.

“I’m so proud to have won this title for Australia. Obviously I can improve but I showed that my heart and power can never be questioned,” Browne said. “I’m thrilled to have made history. It was a big step up, but I got the win and I thank everyone for the support. Words can’t describe how I feel right now.”

Having the WBA title is nice, but now the hard work begins for Browne. He has to beat Oquendo or else try and line up one of the other champions to fight him in a unification match. Browne’s promoter Ricky Hatton should be looking to get the likes of Deontay to fight Browne. Deontay is probably licking his chops at the thought of getting into the ring and beating the daylights out of Browne in order to win the WBA title. That would then put Deontay on a crash course with the likes of Luis Ortiz and Tyson Fury.



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