Segolene Lefebvre will get pleasure from hometown benefit in a bid to regain a title she by no means misplaced within the ring.
BoxingScene.com has realized that the respective groups for Lefebvre and reigning WBO junior featherweight titlist Debora Anahi Dionicius have reached a deal, thus avoiding a handbag bid listening to for his or her ordered title battle. The 2 will meet on April 29 in Lefebvre’s hometown of Douai, France.
The battle was ordered on December 27, a number of weeks after Lefebvre (16-0, 1KO) was stripped of the title for failure to defend as a result of medical causes. The 29-year-old Frenchwoman suffered an damage final September which left her hospitalized and required surgical procedure. Lefebvre’s supervisor, Mariana Caballero, notified the WBO of the event because it affected a deliberate title protection final October.
Sympathy was afforded the unbeaten boxer by the WBO however not a lot else past that. The sanctioning physique cited Rule 19 in its by-laws (“Failure Of The Champion to Comply With The Phrases Of A World Championship Contract Or The World Championship Guidelines”) as grounds to demote Lefebvre to obligatory challenger for the title she first claimed in a November 2021 win over Paulette Valenzuela in her Douai hometown.
One profitable protection adopted, a ten-round factors win over Melania Sorroche final Could 7 additionally in Douai. The next damage would go away Lefebvre bodily unable to defend for greater than 180 days, prompting the sanctioning physique to take motion.
Dionicius (35-4, 6KOs) was the chief benefactor of the ruling.
The 34-year-old two-division titlist from Villaguay, Argentina—who’s promoted by O.R. Promotions—claimed the vacant title in a ten-round choice victory over countrywoman Marcela Eliana Acuna (51-9-2, 20KOs) final December 23 in Resistencia, Argentina. The battle was her fourth of 2022 for Dionicius, all in a seven-month span starting with a majority choice defeat to Brenda Karen Carabajal of their interim WBO featherweight title battle final Could.
Dionicius will try the primary protection of her title. The highway journey to France will mark simply her second profession battle exterior of Argentina; the lone different event got here in a June 2015 win over Simona Galassi in the midst of six-year IBF junior bantamweight title protection from 2012 by a September 2018 defeat to Jorgelina Guanini.
Jake Donovan is a senior author for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox