Pedro Taduran

Bio

Right then — if you have not been paying attention to the 105lb division, Pedro Taduran is the fighter who is about to drag you into it. The man from Libon, Albay is the current IBF minimumweight champion of the world, and as of April 2026 he has made three successful defences of the belt, the latest being a brutal seventh-round stoppage of Mexican challenger Gustavo Perez Alvarez in Temecula, California on his US debut.

Taduran first won the IBF title back in 2019, lost it, rebuilt himself, and then reclaimed it in 2024 with a performance that turned him from a Filipino prospect into a genuine world-level operator. He is not a one-punch knockout artist in the way that some of the big names at heavier weights are, but he finds the finish. Thirteen stoppages in nineteen wins at a weight class where knockouts are supposed to be rare tells you everything about his accuracy and his timing.

Make no mistake — Taduran is a proper technician with a mean streak. He picks his moments, lets opponents walk onto the shot, and when the work-rate drops even slightly, he closes the show. His finish of Perez Alvarez showed the lot — patience through the early rounds, a brilliant body shot to change the fight, and then clinical finishing instinct when his opponent was on the ropes.

Next up, if the sport has any sense at all, is a unification bout with WBA and WBO champion Oscar Collazo. Taduran called him out immediately after the Perez Alvarez stoppage. Filipino versus Puerto Rican for undisputed 105lb honours. If you know, you know — that is a Fight of the Year candidate before the first bell.