JACK CATTERALL and Arnold Barboza Jr. have agreed to square off in another risky non-title fight February 15.
Catterall and Barboza beat former 140-pound champions Regis Prograis and Jose Ramirez respectively in recent fights that could’ve cost them title shots. Boxing News has learned those victories haven’t prevented them from accepting comparable risks in a 12-round main event DAZN will stream from Co-op Live Arena in Manchester, England, a short drive from Catterall’s hometown of Chorley.
Barboza (31-0, 11 KOs), of El Monte, California, is the WBO’s number one contender for its junior welterweight champion, Teofimo Lopez. Catterall (30-1, 13 KOs) is ranked second by the WBO in its 140-pound ratings.
While it is logical to expect the Catterall-Barboza winner to emerge as the mandatory challenger for Lopez’s championship, Boxing News couldn’t confirm that aspect of their contracts by the time this story was posted.
Regardless, Catterall-Barboza is an intriguing bout between a southpaw (Catterall) and an orthodox boxer (Barboza) that figures to be a competitive tactical battle.
The left-handed Catterall clearly outboxed New Orleans’ Prograis (29-3, 24 KOs) and won a unanimous decision October 26 at Co-op Live Arena. Prograis dropped Catterall in the fifth round, but the crafty Brit responded by regaining control of the action and knocked Prograis to the canvas twice in the ninth round.
Judges Dave Braslow (116-109), Manuel Palomo (117-108) and Bob Williams (116-109) each scored at least nine of their 12 rounds for Catterall. The English contender has scored convincing victories over Prograis and former undisputed 140-pound champ Josh Taylor in back-to-back bouts.
Catterall, 31, avenged his controversial loss to Taylor (19-2, 13 KOs) on May 25, when he definitively defeated the Scottish southpaw in a 12-round, non-championship clash at First Direct Arena in Leeds. Taylor nicked Catterall by split decision when they first fought in February 2022 at SSE Hydro in Glasgow.
Their rematch was postponed twice in 2023, first due to Taylor’s foot injury and again when the WBO ordered Taylor to make a mandated defense against Lopez. Las Vegas’ Lopez (21-1, 13 KOs) beat Taylor by unanimous decision in June 2023 and won the only one of the four belts Taylor once owned when he entered the ring that night at Madison Square Garden’s Theater in New York.
Barboza, 33, produced the most credible win of his 11-year professional career when he unanimously out-pointed Ramirez on November 17 at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He defeated Ramirez (29-2, 18 KOs), a former WBC and WBO 140-pound champion from Avenal, California, by scores of 97-93, 96-94 and 96-94.
