WBSS Announces Doubleheader Card For October 20 In Orlando

The World Boxing Super Series will return to the United States on October 20 with two tournaments fights.

The event will take place at the CFE Arena in Orlando, Florida and will be headlined by a bantamweight tournament fight between IBF titleholder Emmanuel Rodriguez and mandatory challenger Jason Moloney. It is the second WBSS bantamweight fight announced after Naoya Inoue’s fight against Juan Carlos Payano is set for October 7 in Japan.

Rodriguez defends his world title for the first time since winning it back in May with a wide unanimous decision victory over Paul Butler in England. Rodriguez will face Moloney, an undefeated contender from Australia. The fight was made long before the World Boxing Super Series Draft Gala to determine the matchups being made as Moloney is the mandatory challenger to Rodriguez’s title.

The second World Boxing Super Series fight taking place on the October 20 card is a cruiserweight fight between Yunier Dorticos and Mateusz Masternak. This is the first bout announced for the WBSS’s second cruiserweight tournament after the first one crowned a new undisputed cruiserweight champion in Oleksandr Usyk.

Dorticos is a returning fighter from that first tournament, being eliminated by Murat Gassiev in the semifinals back in February. Dorticos is a former interim WBA cruiserweight champion and was elevated to “regular” champion for the tournament. Masternak, a former interim title challenger, sports a 41-4 record and is currently on a five-fight win streak since his last lost, a 2015 loss to Tony Bellew.

This is the first World Boxing Super Series event announced to take place in the United States for season two. In the first season of the WBSS, only two fight cards, both of which were headlined by cruiserweight tournament fights, took place in the United States.