After his victory over former two-time world champion, Jhonny Gonzalez, 17 days ago, Puerto Rican Jonathan Oquendo signed the contract that will take him to his first world title bout, to be held on Saturday, December 5, against the World Boxing Association (WBA) featherweight champion Jesus Cuellar at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
The clash between Oquendo (26-4, 16 KOs) and the Argentine Cuellar (27-1, 21 KOs) will be part of the show headlined by the WBA middleweight champion Daniel Jacobs (30-1, 27 KOs) and former middleweight world champion Peter Quillin (32-0-1, 23 KOs), who are going to face for Jacobs’ belt. Both Quillin and Jacobs live in Brooklyn.
Meanwhile, Oquendo confirmed that he has a contract with PR Best Boxing Promotions (PRBBP) until 2016 and he will honor it. In addition, he will continue to handle personally all matters of his career with PRBBP.
“After reviewing my promotional contract as a professional boxer with Ivan Rivera (President of PRBBP), I realized that it is in effect until 2016, so I can’t sign with another company.
“Also, I noticed that my management contract had expired in July 2013, and I hadn’t noticed. I signed the contract with GBP per misstatement of the people who were managing my career, and with whom I communicated via phone and email, so I did with the people of GBP too, to end the relationship”, Oquendo said.
“But this is another chapter and now we’re going for the world championship and is time to train at my best to win the title,” Oquendo added.
While, Peter Rivera, Vice-President of PRBBP, was pleased with this world chance for Oquendo, who will fight for the first time in his career in New York.
“We were offered this fight for Jonathan after his great win against Jhonny Gonzalez, and we spoke with his team, everything was good so Jonathan will face Cuellar for the world title. Jonathan took some days off after his fight against Gonzalez, but he is already training to be in the best condition, as usually he goes for his fights,” Rivera said.
“Jonathan will also have the opportunity to fight in front of thousands of Puerto Ricans, who will supporting him in Brooklyn that day and cheering for another Puerto Rican to become world champion.”
In 2015, Oquendo beat former 118 and 126 pounds world champion Jhonny Gonzalez last September 12 by decision in Las Vegas and in March he won a unanimous decision over Gabino Cota in Florida.
Cuellar won the WBA Interim featherweight title in August 2013 with an unanimous decision over Claudio Marrero and has defended it four times with victories over Rico Ramos (UD), Juan Manuel “Juanma “Lopez (KO2), Ruben Tamayo (TKO5) and Vic Darchinyan (KO8).