{"id":10094,"date":"2025-02-01T15:59:50","date_gmt":"2025-02-01T15:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/anto-cacace-belfast-boxer-vacates-world-title\/"},"modified":"2025-02-01T15:59:50","modified_gmt":"2025-02-01T15:59:50","slug":"anto-cacace-belfast-boxer-vacates-world-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/anto-cacace-belfast-boxer-vacates-world-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Anto Cacace: Belfast boxer vacates world title"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Belfast boxer Anto Cacace has vacated his IBF world super-featherweight title in search of the &#8220;biggest fights possible&#8221;.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The 35-year-old beat Joe Cordina to become world champion in Saudia Arabia in May 2024 before winning a non-title fight against Josh Warrington at Wembley Stadium four months ago.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cacace was due to face his mandatory challenger for the IBF title, Eduardo &#8216;Sugar&#8217; Nunez, in his next bout but will now be free to face any opponent after relinquishing his championship belt.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Today I have decided to vacate my IBF world title,&#8221; Cacace posted on Instagram on Friday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Becoming a world champion was an absolute dream and an incredibly proud moment for me. However, at this stage of my career, I only want the biggest fights possible, regardless of the belt on the line.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cacace stunned the boxing world when he knocked out Cordina in the eighth round on the undercard of Tyson Fury and Oleksandr Usyk&#8217;s first undisputed heavyweight showdown in Riyadh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The underdog going into the fight, the Belfast man delivered a brutal performance to hand the Welshman his first professional defeat and claim the world title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">His first defence of that belt was due to be against former world champion Josh Warrington, before the IBF refused to sanction the fight as a world title contest because of the Leeds fighter&#8217;s inactivity at super-featherweight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Without the title on the line, Cacace claimed a unanimous points win over Warrington to complete a memorable 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><i class=\"ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2\">You can hear more from Anto Cacace on Nations Fight Night on Saturday, live across BBC Sport NI, as part of our pundit team.<\/i><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><i class=\"ssrcss-xbdn93-ItalicText e5tfeyi2\">Watch on BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website from 18:30 (GMT)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/sport\/boxing\/articles\/cq8k4vy7q4xo\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Belfast boxer Anto Cacace has vacated his IBF world super-featherweight title in search of the &#8220;biggest fights possible&#8221;. The 35-year-old beat Joe Cordina to become world champion in Saudia Arabia in May 2024 before winning a non-title fight against Josh Warrington at Wembley Stadium four months ago. Cacace was due to face his mandatory challenger [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10095,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-boxing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10096,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10094\/revisions\/10096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/sport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}