Purse bid for Emmanuel Rodriguez-Jose Salas Reyes bantamweight eliminator settled

A purse bid to stage the IBF bantamweight title eliminator between Puerto Rico’s former champion Emmanuel Rodriguez and Mexico’s Jose Salas Reyes was won Tuesday by Puerto Rico-based Fresh Productions for $120,500.

With the IBF’s top two rankings slots open under champion Ryosuke Nishida, third-ranked Rodriguez (22-3, 13 KOs) will earn $72,300 of the purse (60%) and Reyes (15-0, 10 KOs) will earn $48,200 (40%), according to the IBF, which announced the results.

Manny Pacquiao Promotions was outbid after attempting to stage the bout for $76,000.

The bout must take place by December 16, the IBF announced.

Rodriguez lost his first title defense in Japan to Nishida by unanimous decision (115-112, 117-110, 115-112) on May 4.

Rodriguez previously suffered a second-round knockout loss to Naoya Inoue in 2019, but has defeated the brother of Gary Russell Jr., Gary Antonio Russell, twice, and also defeated Australia’s Jason Moloney before winning the IBF belt in August 2023 by capping a unanimous-decision victory with three 12th-round knockdowns Nicaragua’s Melving Lopez.

Reyes, from Tijuana, is coming off consecutive victories by 10-round decisions in Tijuana after posting a fourth–round knockout of Aston Palicte on the Terence Crawford-Errol Spence Jr. card in July 2023, and winning a bout at the ProBox TV arena in Florida before that. 

The left-hander Nishida does not have a bout scheduled as of now.