The Fight That Was Nearly Made
Right then. For about three weeks there, British and Irish boxing had the easiest big fight in the world sitting on the table, and now it is in a drawer with a two-year-old piece of paperwork on top of it.
Denzel Bentley holds the WBO middleweight title. Aaron McKenna, who lit the 3Arena up last month, holds the IBF. Two world champions, two belts, two camps that wanted it, and a natural stadium night on either side of the Irish Sea. Terms had been discussed. It was close.
The WBO has now ordered Bentley to defend against unbeaten Cuban mandatory challenger Yoenli Hernandez instead, and the unification goes on ice.
A Mandatory That Predates The Champion
Here is the maddening part, and it is worth understanding rather than just shouting about. Hernandez's mandatory position does not come from anything Bentley did. It dates back to Janibek Alimkhanuly's reign, and it has been sitting outstanding for over two years.
WBO president Gustavo Olivieri had indicated in late August that Bentley would get one voluntary defence first — that was the gap the McKenna fight was going to slip through. Hernandez's side appealed. The WBO reconsidered. The gap closed.
Bentley's manager Martin Bowers made the obvious argument: the clock should start when his man was elevated to full champion on 20 July, not be inherited from a previous champion's unfinished business. The committee did not agree.
Is That Fair?
On Bentley personally, no. He won the interim belt in London in April, stopping Endry Saavedra in the seventh in front of his own crowd. He was elevated in July when Alimkhanuly vacated for super-middleweight. Seven weeks as a full champion and he has been handed the most avoided man in the division.
On the sport, though? Let's not beat around the bush — mandatories exist for exactly this reason. A contender who has waited more than two years while belts changed hands around him has earned his shot, and the alternative is a division where the queue never moves because the champions keep finding each other instead.
The Cuban Problem
Hernandez is the sort of fighter who quietly ruins careers. Unbeaten, southpaw, a counterpuncher with the amateur schooling you would expect, and he came through Francisco Daniel Veron by majority decision in Las Vegas last month on the Lopez-Romero bill.
He is not just top of the WBO queue either. He sits behind only Erislandy Lara in the WBA's rankings at the weight. Two sanctioning bodies putting the same man at the front is rarely an accident — it usually means the rest of the division has been finding reasons to be busy.
Style-wise this is a nightmare draw for Bentley. The Battersea man is at his best walking forward and working the body behind a decent jab. Southpaw counterpunchers who do not come to him are precisely the problem he has least evidence of solving at world level.
What It Does To McKenna
McKenna, meanwhile, waits. He has the IBF belt, he has an enormous amount of goodwill after Dublin, and he now has a hole in his calendar where the biggest fight of his life was supposed to sit.
That is not all bad for him. He is 27, he is improving fight by fight, and a voluntary defence or two on home soil while Bentley takes the hard road is hardly a punishment. The unification is not dead — it has simply acquired a very awkward gatekeeper.
What Happens Next
No date yet. Bentley boxes for Frank Warren and Queensberry, Hernandez is with PBC, and if the two sides cannot agree terms it goes to purse bid. Given the promotional and geographical gap, do not be shocked if it does.
Luke's Verdict
I am going to be unpopular here. This is the right call and it is the making of Denzel Bentley.
A champion who beats the man everybody else swerved is a proper champion. If Bentley gets past Hernandez, he walks into the McKenna fight with a level of credibility he simply does not have today, and that fight is worth twice the money and three times the meaning.
My prediction, though, is that he does not get there. Hernandez by unanimous decision, boxing off the back foot, banking rounds in threes, and leaving Bentley a round or two short on the cards in a fight the crowd never quite warms to. I would love the Battersea man to prove me wrong, because the version of this where he does is brilliant for British boxing — but Cuban southpaws who nobody wants to fight are not avoided for nothing.
More middleweight coverage is on our news page, and the full domestic calendar is on our fight cards page.