A highly-anticipated all-British flyweight world title fight between Charlie Edwards and Andrew Selby may have been dashed entirely.
Hours after Edwards successfully retained his WBC world title against Angel Moreno at the Copper Box Arena, Selby was in Mexico fighting Julio Cesar Martinez in a title eliminator to create a mandatory challenger for the title. Unfortunately for those wanting to Edwards vs. Selby for the WBC title, Selby was unable to fulfill his end of the bargain after getting knocked out by Selby.
Selby had been controlling the fight and was leading on the scorecards, but Martinez turned his fortunes around by dropping Selby with a vicious left body hook in the fifth round. Selby barely got back up, but hadn't fully recovered and so the referee stopped the fight at that point.
The loss snapped Selby’s 11-fight win streak and temporarily sets him back in his quest to fight for a world title after winning a multitude of smaller titles such as the WBC International, IBF Intercontinental and BBBofC British titles. Martinez has now won 14 straight fights with his last eight victories coming from inside the distance.
With Martinez as the new mandatory challenger, Edwards’ options for his next title defense are clear. Edwards could either face Martinez, former champion Cristofer Rosales in a rematch of their December 2018 title bout or have a unification fight against any of the other world champions at 112 pounds.
