WBO schedules purse bid for Olascuaga vs Gonzalez

Jonathan Gonzalez vacated his light flyweight title in June

Newly crowned WBO flyweight champion Anthony Olascuaga won’t have long to rest on his laurels, as the sanctioning body has scheduled a purse bid for this coming Friday after Olascuaga’s camp and that of former light flyweight titlist Jonathan “Bomba” Gonzalez failed to come to terms.

The minimum bid is $80,000; if the fight is held “in the country of origin, residence or nationality of the Champion, or a neutral venue,” Olascuaga (7-1, 5 KO) gets 75%. If Gonzalez (28-3-1, 14 KO) gets home-field advantage, it’s 80/20.

Olascuaga, a longtime training partner of bantamweight champion Junto Nakatani, has really broken out these last couple years. After Gonzalez came down with pneumonia less than two weeks before an April 2023 title unification with Kenshiro Teraji, Olascuaga answered the call and gave Teraji everything he could handle before falling in the ninth. Three months later, he survived a rough start to take out former title challenger Giemel Magramo, then blew up Riku Kano with one of 2024’s nastiest knockouts last month to claim the belt.

Though marred by his inability to make it to the ring against Teraji, Rodriguez enjoyed a solid reign at 108. His flyweight campaign hopes to be one of redemption; he fell to Kosei Tanaka while up on the cards in 2019 and previously suffered knockout losses to Giovani Segura and Jobert Alvarez.

He’s skilled enough to give anyone fits, but we’ll see if he’s sturdy enough to hold out against a genuine puncher this time.