Brandon Figueroa will make the first defense of his interim junior featherweight world title at home.
Figueroa will square off with Argentina’s Javier Chacon in the main event of a Premier Boxing Champions card on Aug. 24 (Fox Sports 1, 10 p.m. ET) at Bert Ogden Arena in Edinburg, Texas — about a half hour from Figueroa’s hometown of Weslaco, Texas — PBC has announced.
Figueroa (19-0, 14 KOs), 22, stopped Yonfrez Parejo in the eighth round to claim the vacant interim belt on April 20 in Carson, California.
Figueroa, who is the younger brother of former lightweight world titlist Omar Figueroa Jr., will be aiming for his sixth consecutive knockout.
“It feels amazing to be bringing nationally televised fights to Bert Ogden Arena for the first time for my hometown fans,” Figueroa said. “I’m looking forward to this fight and I’m going to continue to knock people out and move up the 122-pound rankings. I’m facing an awkward fighter, but I believe there will be opening for me to attack his body, which is one of my strengths. It’s going to be a great atmosphere and I’m working hard like the fight is in two weeks.”
Chacon (29-4-1, 9 KOs), 38, has won four fights in a row since a sixth-round knockout loss to Isaac Dogboe, who went on to win a junior featherweight world title. But Chacon, who has boxed primarily in Argentina, has lost when he has stepped up to fight top opponents, including to Dogboe and former world titleholders Jamie McDonnell and Anselmo Moreno.
“I’m looking forward to this great opportunity to fulfill my dreams of being world champion like my brother Julio Pablo,” Chacon said of his older sibling, who held a featherweight world title in the early 2000s. “To get here, I had to win a tournament to find the best (122-pound fighter) in Argentina. I was the underdog in every fight and still won each time. That’s what I’m going to do again on Aug. 24. I will win when nobody thinks I can.”
The card will also include two other televised bouts. Junior featherweight Stephen Fulton Jr. (16-0, 7 KOs), 24, of Philadelphia, will face Isaac Avelar (16-0, 10 KOs), 21, of Mexico, in a 12-round fight and junior welterweight Darwin Price (14-0, 7 KOs), 29, of Houston, will face Donovan Estrella (13-0, 4 KOs), 24, of Denver, in a 10-round bout.