WBO orders purse bid for Demetrius Andrade vs. Zhanibek Alimkhanuly on Jan.15th

By Boxing News - 12/20/2021 - Comments

By Jack Tiernan: The World Boxing Organization has ordered a purse bid for January 15th for WBO middleweight champion Demetrius ‘Boo Boo’ Andrade and his mandatory challenger Zhanibek Alimkhanuly.

Andrade’s management has been trying to set up a unification fight with WBC 160-lb champion Jermall Charlo, but it looks like that’s a no-go.

Jermall is flat-out NOT interested in ever fighting Andrade because the chances are high that he’ll lose. Charlo is a good fighter, but he’s not shown a lot of ambition to take dangerous opponents.

Fighting on Showtime, Jermall has a good thing going, being fed weak opposition by his management at PBC, and he’s not going to rock the boat by fighting Andrade.

Vacating makes sense for Demetrius

As a result, Andrade (31-0, 19 KOs) needs to decide whether to go through with the purse bid for the tough title defense against the unbeaten Alimkhanuly (11-0, 7 KOs) or to vacate and request for the WBO to make him the mandatory for Canelo Alvarez’s 168-lb title.

Given how dangerous the 28-year-old Alimkhanuly is as a knockout artist, Andrade should consider vacating and moving up to 168 to be installed as the Mexican star’s WBO mandatory.

Image: WBO orders purse bid for Demetrius Andrade vs. Zhanibek Alimkhanuly on Jan.15th

It’s doubtful that Canelo would choose to defend his WBO title against a slick boxer like Demetrius, so he’d either vacate or be stripped of his title. When that happens, Andrade will face one of these contenders in the WBO’s top five:

1. Zach Parker
2. Daniel Jacobs
3. David Lemieux
4. Aslambek Idigov
5. Aidos Yerbossynuly

Those are all very beatable opposition for Andrade, and he’d likely defeat them. Jacobs used to be a good fighter, but he is looking well past it lately.

This writer seriously doubts that Jacobs would ever agree to a fight with Andrade, even if he were ordered to face him by the WBO.

Andrade has defended his WBO middleweight title five times since winning the vacant title with a knockout victory over Walter Kautondokwa in 2018.

Andrade unable to get the compelling fights

In Andrade’s last fight, he defeated a badly overmatched Jason Quigley by a second round knockout on November 19th.

Since signing with Matchroom Boxing in 2018, the British company has kept him frequently fighting. Still, unfortunately, his opposition has predominantly UK fighters that U.S casual boxing fans had no interest in seeing.

Andrade would like to fight Canelo, Gennadiy Golovkin, Jaime Munguia, and Jermall Charlo, but those fights aren’t available to him.

At this point, it’s evident that the only way Andrade will get the top guys to fight him is if he moves up to 168. Thus far, Andrade has been reluctant to move up in weight, perhaps because he doesn’t like the idea of being reduced to being a contender.

As the WBO 160-lb champion, Andrade has been making good money defending his title against obscure British fighters with marginal talent and no name recognization.