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By Sean BEAN
Cruiserweight titlist Badou Jack is hoping to stake his claim in a new division.
The 38-year-old former 168-pound titlist from Sweden indicated in a recent interview that he intends to try his luck in the “Bridgerweight” division, the new weight class introduced by the World Boxing Council in 2020 as a way to allow smaller heavyweights to compete for a title. The division sits above cruiserweight but has a max weight limit of 224 pounds. Many top heavyweights, such as WBC titlist Tyson Fury and Anthony Joshua, tend to weigh around the 250-pound mark.
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Jack (28-3-3, 17 KOs), who won the WBC cruiserweight title with a comprehensive stoppage of Illunga Makabu in February, suggested his next move is to enter a “new weight class.”
“I got a couple of fights left,” Jack told Boxing Social. “I’m working on something big. Hopefully we can finalize it and announce it very soon.
“There’s a new weight class —bridgerweight, that’s one of them. It’s not a 100% but, yes, it looks like that’s going to happen next.”
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The bridgerweight champion is currently Poland’s Lukasz Rozanski, who won it in April by stopping Croatia’s Alen Babic in one round.
The belt previously belonged to the division’s inaugural champion in Colombian contender Oscar Rivas, who won it by defeating Ryan Rozicki in October of 2022. But Rivas was demoted to “champion-in-recess” earlier this year by the WBC because it remains unclear if he will continue fighting.
The Montreal-based Rivas has claimed he was the subject of promotional fraud by a Colombian backer who was trying to stage a fight between Rivas and Rozanski.
The bridgerweight division, or “super cruiserweight” division, is not endorsed by the three other major sanctioning bodies, which include the WBO, the WBA, and IBF.