Venado López will defend his title against Reiya Abe in March, according to reports

Luis Alberto ‘Venado’ López will defend his featherweight title of the International Boxing Federation (IBF) against mandatory challenger Reiya Abe on March 2 in a still unknown city in the United States, as confirmed by sources to Izquierdazo.

In an interview with the aforementioned media, Kiki Magaña, manager of Venado López, expressed that The Mexican fighter is scheduled to fight three times in 2024 and one of them is against the dangerous Nayoa Inoue.

“We want three fights in 2024, the mandatory one, seek unification, a fight in their city and see what will happen to Inoue who has an important fight with Tapales, who I think will have no problems. There is talk of Luis ‘Pantera’ Nery (as a rival of the Japanese), but Inoue could go up to 126, we would love to wait for him and if not look for another of the available belts,” he said.

“After defending his title it would be seeking unification, after that There is perhaps talk of a possible confrontation in Mexicoit could be in his city (Mexicali) or wait how the calendar of the other champions moves,” he declared.

It should be noted that the Venado López team He had asked the IBF for special permission to be able to hold the unification fight. with Robeisy Ramírez, former monarch of the World Boxing Organization (WBO), but this was denied and he will have to face the Japanese. Furthermore, the Cuban lost his title this weekend against Rafael ‘Divino’ Espinoza, so the fight would no longer make sense.

Following Magaña’s plans, now the Mexican will have to go through Abe to seek unification with one of the featherweight champions or wait for Noyao Inoue to welcome him to the category after he faces the Filipino Marlon Tapales on December 26, to try to be crowned undisputed in the super bantamweight.

Instead, Reiya Abe wants to be crowned world champion for the first time and will have the opportunity to do it against Venado López. The last time the Japanese entered the ring was last April when he defeated former two-weight champion Kiko Martínez by unanimous decision.

Luis Alberto ‘Venado’ López, 29, continues to establish himself as one of the best featherweight fighters and has in mind unifying the belts. The Mexican has a record of 29 wins (16 knockouts) and 2 setbacks.

For his part, Reiya Abe, 30, is the mandatory challenger of the IBF and will try to take the belt from the Mexican. The Japanese have a record of 25 victories, 10 by way of sleep, and three defeats in his professional career.

Keep reading:
· Venado López aims to unify titles after another successful defense against Joet González
· Venado López challenges Robeisy Ramírez after expressing his desire to unify the titles: “I hope we can meet soon”
· Venado López is willing to welcome Naoya Inoue at featherweight