The historical IBF World women’s heavyweight title between Lani Daniels and Alrie Meleisea could be confirmed to have a WBO world title added within the next two weeks.
On May 27th at Eventfinda Stadium, the first-ever Maori vs Pasifika world title fight will happen in Auckland, New Zealand. The IBF World title has been confirmed for the fight, however, promoter Vasco Kovačević would like to take it a step further and make it a Unification World Heavyweight title fight. If confirmed, it will be the first time a New Zealander to win a unification world title and the first ever IBF and WBO unified World women’s Heavyweight title.
In the world of boxing, there are four major boxing bodies, WBA, WBO, WBC and IBF. Currently, the WBA and WBC world heavyweight women’s titles are currently held by Hanna Gabriels. Gabriels is currently at risk of losing her titles due to not defending them since winning the titles in 2021. The IBF and WBO world titles are currently vacant.
The IBF gave confirmation for the World title fight between Lani Daniels and Alrie Meleisea very quickly. Shortly after receiving confirmation from IBF, Kovačević started putting in the process to get WBO on board. Even though Asia Pacific representatives said they would work on it, WBO had not responded in months. Kovačević put in a backup plan that the winner of the Daniels vs Meleisea fight will unify the titles in America possibly in August.
Last week, Kovačević finally received word from WBO that their initial communication for the world title had gotten lost in the mountain of emails as well as going to the wrong person in the WBO decision-making team. Now that the email has been received by the right person, we could have confirmation from WBO to make this a unification World title fight within the next couple of weeks.
The event will have six to seven professional fights on the card with the event confirmed to be broadcast with Sky TV on Sky Sports. It has been discussed that the event will be on a Sky Sports Pop up channel due to multiple rugby and league matches clashing with the event. Kovačević has also begun talks for International broadcasting.
FITE TV has expressed interest in broadcasting the event to the rest of the world (excluding New Zealand). FITE TV is owned by Triller, who is known for putting on the Mike Tyson vs Roy Jones Jr event during the Covid Pandemic. They have established themselves well across the world working with multiple major promotions in different sports including Professional Wrestling companies like WWE, AEW, NJPW, ROH, Impact Wrestling, Kickboxing companies like One Championship, MMA companies like UFC, PFL and Boxing companies like Matchroom, Top Rank, PBC, Golden Boy, and multiple boxing promotions in Australia.
Kovačević is still looking for sponsorship for the event as having Arena events, a unification world title, TV Production and a fight card to support TV has become costly. He is still looking for naming right sponsors as well as any other sponsors to come on board.
GA Tickets will be on Sale via Eventfinda and corporate tables will be sold on the RLCA website. Ticket Sales are expected to begin at the beginning of March.
