Floyd Schofield is 19-0 with 13 knockouts. Lucas Bahdi is 20-0 with 15. They meet over 12 rounds Saturday night at Wintrust Arena in Chicago for the vacant WBA lightweight title, live on DAZN from 8 p.m. ET.
Two undefeated fighters for a world title at 135 pounds is a rare thing in modern boxing, and both men made weight cleanly on Friday. Schofield came in at 135, Bahdi at 134.
The Two Men
Schofield, 23, was born in Jersey City and fights out of Austin, Texas, where the nickname Kid Austin comes from. He is the blue-chip prospect with the Golden Boy push behind him and the younger, faster of the two.
Bahdi, 32, is Canadian, from Niagara Falls, Ontario. He is nine years older and the heavier puncher, and his signature result is a sixth-round knockout of Ashton Sylve on a crossover card. He is also unbeaten, which tends to get lost when the matchmaking narrative is about a prospect’s next step.
The card is promoted by Golden Boy Promotions in co-promotion with Most Valuable Promotions.
What They Said
Schofield kept it personal at the final press conference. “This fight is for my pops. At the end of the day, he sacrificed his whole life for me,” he said.
Bahdi framed it as a legitimacy fight. “The top two guys in the division are going to war. This is what it’s about, and I’m ready,” he said. “I’m very proud to be Canadian. I wear that flag on my back when I enter the ring.”
Oscar De La Hoya, Golden Boy’s chairman and CEO, predicted that “I strongly feel it’s going to be one of those fight of the year candidates.” Britton Hardin, DAZN’s head of US boxing, pointed at the market: “It’s huge, and the city’s been asking for a big fight.”
A Second Belt Changes Hands Too
The co-feature is unified WBA and WBC flyweight champion Ricardo Sandoval, 27-2 with 18 knockouts, from Rialto, California, against Sergio Mendoza, 27-1 with 23 knockouts, out of Hermosillo. Sandoval weighed 111.6 and Mendoza 111.4.
Also on the main card: Olympian Jahmal Harvey, 4-0 with three knockouts, against Pedro Castaneda, and Jan Paul Rivera, 16-0, against Abraham Perfecto. Prelims start at 4 p.m. ET and include Tristan Kalkreuth against Ivan Rosado at cruiserweight and Naomy Valle against Sheyla Moreno.
The Honest Framing
This is a vacancy story as much as a title story. A world championship at lightweight is being filled by the division’s second tier while the marquee names are occupied elsewhere, and the reason the belt is open has not been firmly established. One outlet attributes it to Gervonta Davis being declared champion in recess, and that explanation is single-sourced.
None of which diminishes the fight. Someone is leaving Chicago with a first loss and someone is leaving with a world title. That is worth watching regardless of how the strap came to be available.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.