A deal has been struck for Lee McGregor and Kash Farooq to meet in a long-awaited all-Scottish rematch for the British, Commonwealth and European bantamweight titles.
The two met in November 2019 in a brilliant fight, with McGregor, who went into the fight as Commonwealth champion, winning a narrow and disputed decision over Farooq, who went in as British champion. It was also a classic East v West Scottish clash, with McGregor coming from Edinburgh and Farooq from Glasgow.
Farooq had hoped for a direct rematch, but McGregor went in another direction and won the European title in sensational style with a first-round stoppage of Karim Guerfi in March.
The British Boxing Board of Control had called for purse bids after mandating the rematch, but ahead of bids being opened, a deal was agreed between Farooq’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, and McGregor’s representatives, MTK Global, for Hearn to promote at a date and venue to be agreed.
McGregor, who stretched hid unbeaten record to 11 by getting off the floor to knock out Vincent Legrand in August, is ranked No 3 by the IBF, the highest rated contender, as well as No 7 by both the WBC and WBA and No 12 by the WBO. Farooq is ranked No 12 by the WBC and 14 by the WBO. He was also last in action in August as he beat Mexico’s Luis Castillo on points.
Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 – covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.