RAU’SHEE WARREN has been ordered by the WBA to face Jamie McDonnell, with a 30-day deadline on negotiations.
If a deal is not reached in that timeframe, the fight will go to purse bids. Warren won the WBA bantamweight title from Juan Carlos Payano last month, and must now face McDonnell, who holds the sanctioning body’s secondary belt.
The decision is a part of the WBA’s initiative to create just one champion in each weight class after they littered the sport with their spurious titles. It should be noted that McDonnell is a former holder of the IBF title, but was unceremoniously stripped, and would also have the WBO belt if Tomoki Kameda had not vacated it before their first fight last year.
Warren outpointed Payano in June after having dropped a close decision to him last year, becoming the first US 2012 Olympian to win a world title.
Payano had originally been ordered to begin negotiations with McDonnell, though his hastily arranged rematch with Warren took precedence with the caveat that the winner would then have to face Jamie.
After twice beating the highly-touted Kameda, McDonnell stopped Fernando Vargas (not that Fernando Vargas) in nine rounds in April.
The Doncaster native is no stranger to boxing on the road – his two wins over Kameda were in Texas – and has expressed his willingness to once again go across the pond for big fights.
His time at bantamweight is limited, however, and he will eventually move up to super-bantam, where his twin brother Gavin is on the verge of a world title shot.
