By Andrey Bazdrev

The latest word coming out of Russia is that Sultan Ibragimov is set to face WBO heavyweight champion Shannon Briggs on June 2 in the United States.

The fight was previously supposed to take place in Moscow, Russia, but Team Maskaev announced that a proposed Vitali Klitchko-Oleg Maskaev bout is also set to take place in Moscow on the very same date, June 2.

There was very little chance that all parties could reach an agreement and both title fights could find a place on the same boxing show, but according to Team Ibragimov the proposal of Shelly Finkel (Klitschko) and Dennis Rappaport (Maskaev) had no commercial sense in it.

Golden Grain Promotions, the co-promoter of the WBO mandatory challenger Sultan Ibragimov released the following statement:

“Regarding all the boxing achievements of the current WBC Champion Oleg Maskaev and taking under consideration that it’s hardly possible to stage two great boxing events on the same day in Moscow, we decided to take Ibragimov-Briggs fight to the USA”.