Galal Yafai will get a world title shot after it emerged that his lone professional conqueror Francisco Rodriguez failed a drug test.
Yafai is now the mandatory challenger for the WBC flyweight world championship and expects to fight Ricardo Sandoval, the unified WBC and WBA titlist, early in 2026.
"I'm hearing it's the first quarter of next year, it's next. I've just got to make sure I'm 100 per cent ready. Most likely it will be in America," Yafai told SportNews.
Yafai suffered a punishing 12-round defeat in his Birmingham home town when he fought Rodriguez in June. The Mexican repeatedly hurt Yafai and dropped him in the last round too.
Yafai, previously unbeaten, was the WBC interim titlist, in position to challenge for the world title. The defeat to Rodriguez was at the time a devastating career setback.
It only emerged afterwards that Rodriguez had failed a drug test.
"He beat me so easy. I've fought all over the world, the Olympic Games, I've fought as a pro now three years. I've beaten some good fighters," Yafai said. "Then I come up against Rodriguez, who's 32 years old, probably has had his best years. Hasn't been great in the last couple of years.
"He's coming down at the weight, he's fighting me at my prime. I've got momentum. Olympic champion, thankfully, so I've got some credentials.
"And he just beat me so easy and he came to my city to do it as well. I just thought something's quite off. When he was hitting me in the fight, I'd never had that before where somebody was so easily getting on top of me."
Yafai had to ask himself questions he'd never had to confront before.
"When it first happened I was disappointed. Obviously we all want to win our fights. I'd just beaten Sunny [Edwards], I was interim world champion, I was one step away from fighting for the world title, I was fighting in Birmingham, I was favourite to win," he reflected.
"Yeah I'm a fighting a great fighter in Rodriguez, but I felt I had more than enough to win and I was better. After the fight I think I was asking a lot of questions of myself: why has this happened? How has he beat me so easy?
"It's also how people look at you," he added. "People still have their doubts, maybe he's not as good.
"People can't unsee that fight. It's happened and I've just got to get through it now.
"I can't control that. I can control what I do, which is train hard and beat everyone in front of me, bar him."
He does think that loss to Rodriguez on his record should be overturned and made a no contest.
"Definitely. I think it will be. Due diligence has to be done and I think UKAD and the British board are doing what they can do to fix it and sort it. I just know these things take a while," he said.
"Hopefully it's sooner rather than later."
He has reset his focus on winning the world championship next. "It spurs me on," Yafai insisted. "I'm happy to move on and fight for the world title as I will do.
"At the moment I'm just looking at fighting for the world title. I know that Ricardo Sandoval is the champion, he's got two of the belts. Hopefully I can get that form that I had before and this is just a blip in my journey.
"It'll be a great fight and hopefully I can claim what I should have claimed before."
