DeeJay Kriel has now vacated his IBF minimumweight world title as he will now look to move up in weight.
According to a report from Dan Rafael from ESPN, Kriel informed the IBF of his decision because he can no longer make 105 pounds. As such, Kriel will look to campaign in the 108-pound light flyweight division, one of the deeper weight classes in the lower weights in boxing.
The news comes a couple of weeks after Manny Pacquiao's MP Promotions won a purse bid for the promotional rights of a fight between Kriel and mandatory challenger Sammy Salva. MP Promotions won with a $25,000 offer and per the IBF rules, Kriel was entitled to 65 percent of the winning bid ($16,250) as the champion while Salva would have received the remaining 35 percent ($8,750).
The fight was planned to take place in Manila, Philippines on August 24. It also would have been Kriel's first world title defense since winning the belt back in February. Kriel scored three knockdowns against former titleholder Carlos Licona in the final round of their world title bout to become the new IBF titleholder.
Now that the title is vacant, the IBF will then issue another fight order for the vacant belt. Salva will still get his shot as the mandatory challenger, but it will now be against the next highest-ranked available contender in the IBF rankings, which would be third-ranked Pedro Taduran. Such a fight would mark a very rare occasion in boxing which is a world title fight involving two Filipino fighters. Such an occurrence has only ever happened only a handful of times in the past 100 years.
