Zolani Tete's mandatory world title defense against John Riel Casimero is set and will headline a card with as many as six total title bouts.
Queensberry Promotions announced that Tete, the current WBO bantamweight champion, will face Casimero, the interim WBO titleholder, on November 30 in the main event of a boxing card in Birmingham, England.
The fight came together right after Queensberry Promotions won a purse bid several weeks back. Tete has held the WBO title since 2017, but 2019 was supposed to be solely focused on the World Boxing Super Series. Tete was scheduled to fight WBA champion Nonito Donaire in the WBSS semifinals earlier this year, but Tete had to pull out of the fight due to an injury. This will be Tete's first fight since a unanimous decision win over Mikhail Aloyan in Russia back in October 2018.
Casimero, a former light flyweight and flyweight world champion, briefly had a run at super flyweight but struggled to find much success, capitalized by a loss to Jonas Sultan in 2017. Since that loss, Casimero has fought four times above 115 pounds and has won all of those bouts from inside the distance. On the undercard of a PBC event in April, Casimero dropped Ricardo Espinosa in the sixth round en route to a stoppage in the 12th round to win the interim title.
The interim title was made due to this fight originally being planned as a title eliminator because the World Boxing Super Series was thought to have been wrapped up this summer. After it became evident that the tournament will not wrap until the end of the year, Espinoza's team requested the WBO to sanction his fight against Casimero for the interim title rather than have a lengthy wait as the No. 1 contender to the WBO title.
As for the rest of the undercard, several British title bouts were also announced that will feature unbeaten prospects such as Lerrone Richards and Sam Bowen. Below are the title fights announced for the November 30 show:
- Zolani Tete vs. John Riel Casimero: WBO Bantamweight title
- Sam Bowen vs. Anthony Cacace: BBBofC British Super Featherweight title
- Lerrone Richards vs. Lennox Clarke: BBBofC British Super Middleweight title
- Chris Jenkins vs. Liam Taylor: BBBofC British Welterweight title
- Sam Maxwell vs. Connor Parker: WBO European Junior Welterweight title
- Hamzah Sheeraz vs. TBA: WBO European Junior Middleweight title