{"id":543,"date":"2026-07-06T19:03:27","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T19:03:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=543"},"modified":"2026-07-06T19:03:27","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T19:03:27","slug":"heavyweight-champion-murat-gassievs-new-opponent-announced-after-tony-yoka-injury","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/?p=543","title":{"rendered":"Heavyweight champion Murat Gassiev&#8217;s new opponent announced after Tony Yoka injury"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn-img.boxingnewsonline.net\/uploads\/content\/1783356347397778666\/Murat-Gassiev.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"Heavyweight champion Murat Gassiev&#8217;s new opponent announced after Tony Yoka injury\" title=\"Heavyweight champion Murat Gassiev&#8217;s new opponent announced after Tony Yoka injury\" \/><\/div><p><\/p>\n<div>\n                        <!-- Article Start --><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/boxer\/murat-gassiev\/\">Murat Gassiev<\/a> now knows his opponent for his upcoming WBA heavyweight title defence on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Gassiev became WBA Regular heavyweight champion in December with a knockout win over Kubrat Pulev, and after Oleksandr Usyk vacated his unified world heavyweight titles last month, the Russian is now the WBA\u2019s only belt-holder in the banner division.<\/p>\n<p>He was set to defend that strap against Tony Yoka at the VTB Arena in Moscow this weekend, but after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.co.uk\/boxing\/story\/_\/id\/49251347\/sources-yoka-injures-back-withdraws-title-clash-vs-gassiev\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Yoka suffered an injury and was forced to withdraw<\/a>, a scramble began to search for a new opponent.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/boxingnewsonline.net\/news\/joe-joyce-frontrunner-to-land-title-shot\/\">British heavyweight Joe Joyce was seen as the frontrunner to land the bout<\/a> due to already being on the card in a fight against Artem Suslenkov, but it has now been announced that Peter Kadiru will be the man to earn the opportunity against Gassiev.<\/p>\n<p>Kadiru has a record of 23-1, with 13 of those wins coming by knockout, and he was last in action in May when he claimed a unanimous decision victory over Senad Gashi.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking about the new match-up, Gassiev was pleased that he still gets the chance to fight in Russia.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cI was fully prepared and ready for Tony Yoka, but boxing is unpredictable and champions must adapt. Peter Kadiru is a big, strong, experienced fighter with a solid amateur pedigree and real power.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFighting at home in Moscow in front of my Russian fans for my first defence is special. I will be ready on July 11 and I intend to keep the WBA World Heavyweight Title in Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Gassiev will be seen as the favourite heading into the bout, and a win on Saturday could lead to a major title defence later in the year.<\/p>\n<p>                        <!-- Article End --><\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Murat Gassiev now knows his opponent for his upcoming WBA heavyweight title defence on Saturday. Gassiev became WBA Regular heavyweight champion in December with a knockout win over Kubrat Pulev, and after Oleksandr Usyk vacated his unified world heavyweight titles last month, the Russian is now the WBA\u2019s only belt-holder in the banner division. He&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn-img.boxingnewsonline.net\/uploads\/content\/1783356347397778666\/Murat-Gassiev.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[1156,916,1154,1152,443,1153,1155,1157,1158],"class_list":["post-543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-announced","tag-champion","tag-gassievs","tag-heavyweight","tag-injury","tag-murat","tag-opponent","tag-tony","tag-yoka"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/valutednews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}