The WBO has approved a bantamweight fight taking place this weekend to be for an interim title.
The governing body ruled that Ricardo Espinoza and John Riel Casimero will compete for the interim title on April 20. Their fight is taking place on the undercard of the Premier Boxing Champions card from Carson, California.
The reason for the interim title being created is because of the inactivity of the current WBO world champion, Zolani Tete as all sides were waiting on the announcement of his next fight in the World Boxing Super Series. Tete last fought in October 2018, defeating Mikhail Aloyan by unanimous decision, but due to the reported financial issues with the World Boxing Super Series, there was no word on if the tournament will even continue. Originally, the tournament hoped to have its semifinal bouts take place at the start of 2019, but those issues caused the tournament to be delayed all the way to April.
Tete's next fight has since then been announced and he will face Nonito Donaire to unify the WBA "Super" and WBO titles on April 27 in Louisiana. That fight will be streamed on DAZN in the United States alongside the WBA junior welterweight title fight between Kiryl Relikh and Regis Prograis in the same night.
As for the interim title bout, the fight pits Espinoza and Casimero, two of the top six bantamweights in the WBO rankings. The winner of this fight would be on the short list of fighters that could fight the winner of the World Boxing Super Series, which would have three of the four major alphabet world titles (WBA, WBO and IBF).
This isn't the only interim title fight taking place on that April 20 card as Brandon Figueroa and Yonfrez Parejo will fight for the interim WBA super bantamweight title. The main event of the Fox-televised portion of the card is Danny Garcia vs. Adrian Granados in a 12-round welterweight bout.
