Premier Boxing Champions has signed Brandon Figueroa (25-1-1, 19 KOs) to a multi-fight extension, positioning him firmly in the running to compete in some highly-anticipated featherweight bouts.
To coincide with the extension, the World Boxing Council ordered interim champion Figueroa, 27, to fight Mexican featherweight world champion Rey Vargas (36-1-1, 22 KOs) for the WBC title.
A boxing source familiar with the matter said the PBC plans to hold the bout in the fall.
Figueroa, a former junior featherweight champion from Texas, earned himself interim title status with a ninth-round knockout of Jesse Magdaleno during the Saul “Canelo” Alvarez vs. Jaime Munguia bout in Las Vegas on May 4.
The 33-year-old Vargas is most recently coming off a split draw with Britain's Nick Ball (20-0-1, 11 KOs) on March 8. Ball then won the WBA featherweight belt by defeating Raymond Ford by split decision in Saudi Arabia in a “Five on Five” tournament won by Queensberry promoter Frank Warren.
Ball is obviously waiting to see who wins Figueroa vs. Vargas, as he has a lot of interest in either fighting to a draw with Vargas or winning a second 126-pound belt.
More importantly, it increases the likelihood that Japan's pound-for-pound champion Naoya Inoue (27-0, 24 KOs) will move up to featherweight by next year.
Inoue, a four-division world champion and two-division world champion, recently put in an electrifying performance to knock out Mexico's Luis Nery in front of a crowd of 55,000 at the Tokyo Dome, winning by TKO in the sixth round despite being knocked down in the first round.
Figueroa handily defeated Nery in their 2021 title fight in Southern California, knocking Nery out with a body shot in the seventh round.
