Israil Madrimov is looking to regain a portion of the world junior middleweight title following his close points defeat to Terence Crawford which cost him his WBA belt in Los Angeles on August 3.
“I said after the fight that I thought I did enough to keep my world championship belt,” said the 29-year-old Uzbek native. “Right now, I’m ready for a rematch with Crawford to regain my title or to challenge any of the other junior middleweight champions.”
Currently the WBC and WBO belts are held by Sebastian Fundora with the IBF title owned by Bakhram Murtazaliev.
“A rematch with Terence Crawford is my goal, but I’m not sure he is interested right now. Our fight still has left many questions unanswered, I am sure that one day if he is willing, we will fight again,” said Madrimov, 10-1-1 (7 KOs). “Fundora is a unified world champion, Murtazaliev holds a title; I want to fight the best and prove again that I deserve to be a champion.”
The clash against Crawford headlined the debut Riyadh Season boxing event in the United States. Two judges scored the fight 115-113 for Crawford with the third seeing it a round wider for the American at 116-112.
“I was a world champion and I deserved to be a world champion after August 3, now my main goal is to regain that status,” said Madrimov.
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