Galal Yafai will be given a world title opportunity after it emerged his only professional conqueror Francisco Rodriguez failed a drugs test.
Yafai is now the mandatory challenger for the WBC flyweight world championship and is expected to face WBC and WBA unified titlist Ricardo Sandoval in early 2026.
“I heard it’s the first quarter of next year. We need to make sure it’s 100% ready. It’s likely to happen in the U.S.,” Yafai said. sky sports.
When Yafai fought Rodriguez in June, he suffered a 12-round loss in his hometown of Birmingham. The Mexican hurt Yafai repeatedly and even dropped him in the final round.
Rodriguez failed a drug test following his fight with Yafai.
Previously undefeated, Yafai was a WBC interim titlist and was in position to challenge for a world title. Losing to Rodriguez was a huge career setback at the time.
It was later revealed that Rodriguez had failed a drug test.
“He beat me so easily. I’ve fought all over the world and in the Olympic Games, and I’ve been fighting professionally for three years now. I’ve beaten some good fighters,” Yafai said. “Then I got to face Rodriguez, who was 32 years old and was probably going through his best years, but he hasn’t had a good last few years.
“He’s cutting weight, he’s fighting me in his prime, I’ve got the drive, thankfully I’m an Olympic champion so I qualified.
“And he beat me so easily and even came to my city to do it. I thought something was a little off. When he beat me in a fight, I’ve never had someone get on me so easily before.”
Galal Yafai dominates former world champion Sunny Edwards.
Yafai had to ask herself questions she had never faced before.
“When it first happened, I was disappointed. Obviously we all want to win our fights. I had just beaten Sunny (Edwards), I was interim world champion, I was one step closer to fighting for the world title, I was fighting in Birmingham, I was the favorite,” he recalled.
“Yes, I’m fighting a good fighter in Rodriguez, but I felt I was better and better than enough to win. I think I asked myself a lot of questions after the fight: Why did this happen? How could he beat me so easily?
“It’s also about how people see you,” he added. “People still have doubts, maybe he’s not that good.
“People can’t see the fight. It happened and now I have to get over it.
“I can’t control that. I can control training hard and beating everyone in front of me and stopping him.”
He believes the loss to Rodriguez on his record should be overturned and made a no-contest.
Galal Yafai won gold with Team GB at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
“Of course, I think it will. Due diligence has to be done and I think UKAD and the UK Council are doing what they can to fix it and sort it out, but I know this is going to take some time,” he said.
“I hope it happens sooner rather than later.”
He refocused on winning the next world championship. “It spurs me on,” Yafai asserted. “I’m excited to continue fighting for world titles.
“Now I’m looking at fighting for the world title. I know Ricardo Sandoval is the champion and he has two belts. I hope I can get the form I had before, but this is just a small mistake in my journey.”
“This is going to be a great fight and hopefully I can claim what I should have claimed before.”
