IBF orders Mbilli vs Sadjo final eliminator

The IBF has ordered Christian Mbilli to battle Kevin Lele Sadjo for a shot at super middleweight champion William Scull

With Jaime Munguia out of contention for the foreseeable future after last Saturday’s disastrous knockout loss to Bruno Surace, the IBF has ordered no. 3 super middleweight Christian Mbilli to face no. 6 Kevin Lele Sadjo in a final eliminator.

Eye of the Tiger Management’s Camille Estephan expressed interest in the fight on Twitter, while L’Equipe reports that Sadjo (24-0, 21 KO) promoter Yohan Zaoui accepted the order earlier this week.

That said, Mbilli (28-0, 23 KO) has other potential avenues. The WBC recently ordered him to battle Munguia in another eliminator, and while that’s obviously off the table, they could swap in no. 3 Diego Pacheco, who’d been in talks to face Mbilli in January before timing issues moved his focus to Steven Nelson. Mbilli is also no. 1 with the WBA.

The key difference here is the lack of a Canelo-shaped roadblock. Neither the WBC nor the WBA will ever, ever order a mandatory title shot again without Canelo’s approval; they already ran out the respective clocks on David Benavidez and David Morrell Jr until both men moved up to 175. You can confidently say that a win here would lead to a title fight with William Scull by the end of 2025.

Also, this is just a really, really fun matchup. Two cartoonishly muscled sluggers with bad intentions in every punch, both either from or currently living in France? Delectable.