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Dejan Zlaticanin will face Franklin Mamani for a lightweight title June 11

Fighters Network
03
Jun

Burns Dejan Zlaticanin

Third time is the charm for Dejan Zlaticanin.

The undefeated 5-4 lightweight southpaw from Montenegro will face Franklin Mamani for the vacant WBC 135-pound title June 11 at Turning Stone Casino in Verona, New York after two previous opponents withdrew for various ailments.

Their fight, which was announced on Thursday, will open a Showtime tripleheader headlined by the network debut of Ruslan Provodnikov against John Molina Jr. (9 p.m. ET). Former junior middleweight titleholder Demetrius Andrade is scheduled to take on Willie Nelson in a world title eliminator in the co-feature.



The fight between Zlaticanin and Bolivia’s Mamani (21-2-1, 12 knockouts) came together on Thursday after the WBC’s No. 2-rated lightweight Emiliano Marsili (32-0-1, 14 KOs) pulled out on Tuesday because of sickness. Zlaticanin (21-0, 14 KOs) was initially supposed to face Jorge Linares for a lightweight title in April but Linares withdrew because of a hand injury and was stripped of his title, allowing Zlaticanin to fight for it. Linares is now a champion “in recess” by the WBC and gets to face the winner of Zlaticanin-Mamani.

Mamani, the WBC’s No. 5 contender, was in camp preparing for Chad Bennet for the WBC silver lightweight title for early July when he got the assignment against WBC-ranked No. 1 Zlaticanin, who is also THE RING’s No.2-rated lightweight behind Linares.

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