Former Manny Pacquiao and Naoya Inoue rivals land Las Vegas world-title shots

Sebastian Fundora and O’Shaquie foster will both defend thier WBC titles on 25 October in Las Vegas

The Filipino stunned the American to hand him his first defeat of his career in an entertaining fight

Keith Thurman has been officially announced to challenge for Sebastian Fundora’s WBC super welterweight title on 25 October in Las Vegas.

Thurman made his return to the ring after three years away in March, stopping Brock Jarvis inside three rounds to make a statement to the 154lb division.

He had previously plied his trade in the welterweight division, where he became a unified champion, beating the undefeated Danny Garcia to collect the WBC belt to add to his elevated WBA title in 2017.

The biggest fight of his career and his only loss came against an all-time great in Manny Pacquiao, where he relinquished his WBA welterweight title via split decision in 2019 – he would not return to the ring until 2022.

Fundora is the incumbent WBC champion and is coming off an impressive rebuild after losing to Brian Mendoza in 2023. He became the unified champion, taking Tim Tszyu’s WBC and WBO titles before defending them against Chordale Booker.

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He was forced to vacate his WBO belt to make way for the Tszyu rematch, in which he forced the Australian to retire in the seventh round.

Thurman getting this opportunity came as something of a surprise. He is well known for being outspoken about wanting to fight for a title, but there are a handful of available contenders above him in the rankings.

The chief support on the card is another world title fight between the WBC super featherweight champion O’Shaquie Foster and the challenger - WBC featherweight champion Stephen Fulton.

Fulton is also a former unified super bantamweight champion, but was dethroned by ‘The Monster’ Noaya Inoue, which forced his move up to featherweight, where he became a two-division champion.

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He comes up against a resurgent Foster, who reclaimed his WBC strap at the back end of last year against Robson Conceicao in an immediate rematch after he lost on a split decision earlier that year.

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