Noel Mikaelian is reportedly locked in a legal dispute with Don King
Almost exactly a year after joining forces with Don King, longtime cruiserweight contender Noel Mikaelian claimed his first world title by torching Ilunga Makabu for the WBC belt. Unfortunately for him, we have now once again reached the point where the scorpion stings the frog. A planned June defense against Ryan Rozicki got pushed to September when Mikaelian suffered a cut, only to get further postponed to December 7th for no adequately explained reason.
Now, Mauricio Sulaiman tells Jake Donovan that the fight is once again off as due to an “ongoing legal dispute” between Mikaelian (27-2, 12 KO) and King. If only someone could have seen this coming.
The good news is that Sulaiman is taking an opportunity to right a wrong, pitting Rozicki (20-1, 19 KO) against Yamil Peralta (17-1, 9 KO) for the interim title in a rematch of their hugely controversial 2022 meeting. Rozicki’s decision victory proved so egregious that the WBC refused to give Rozicki the “international” title at stake and recommended it be overturned to a no contest.
The bad news is that Peralta, a 2012 Olympian coming off a solid win over Thabiso Mchunu, will once again have to fight Rozicki in the latter’s home turf.
We’ll let you know if any stateside outlets pick up the broadcast, though it’ll be hard-pressed to compete with Top Rank’s title rematch doubleheader that evening.
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