Artem Dalakian's first fight as the WBA flyweight world champion will have him fight in front of his home country fans in Ukraine.
Dalakian will face off against Sirichai Thaiyen for the WBA title on June 17 at the Parkovy Convention Centre in Kiev, Ukraine.
The new WBA champion won his first world title back in February on the untelevised undercard of HBO's "Superfly 2" special boxing event. The unbeaten Dalakian defeated former flyweight champion Brian Viloria on the undercard by unanimous decision. Dalakian, a former WBA International flyweight champion, will be facing a foe in Thaiyen who has won 50 fights as a professional, the most of any opponent Dalakian has ever faced.
Thaiyen, a former WBC Youth World light flyweight champion, has held the governing body's interim flyweight title from 2013 to 2014, before losing his only full world title defense against Juan Carlos Reveco in 2014. Since the loss to Reveco, Thaiyen won his last 16 fights, capturing the PABA flyweight title, but mostly fighting against relatively low level competition. The fight against Dalakian would be Thaiyen's ninth fight since the start of 2017.
Dalakian is very familiar with the venue. Before his last fight against Brian Viloria, Dalakian fought all three of his fights in 2016 and 2017 fighting at the Parkovy Convention Centre, successfully retaining his WBA Continental flyweight title. At this moment, there are no undercard fights announced for the June 17 card.