History. 4 of 5: Holmes, Ugás, Lara and Barrios kept their titles (Barrios on a draw); Tiozzo lost his in 2000.
Hunch. In May, Bivol came back from back surgery and beat Michael Eifert 120-107 on all three cards in the same city, Yekaterinburg.
The title market resolves on the WBA news page, confirmed by the BBC Sport fight report: YES if Dmitry Bivol is still champion after the fight on 12 December 2026, by a win or a draw, and NO if Callum Smith wins in any way. A no contest, or no fight on 12 December, makes it VOID, with ESPN and The Guardian as the backup.
We looked for cases where a world champion fought at home against a challenger who had already lost a fight for two or more world belts and had not fought for at least 18 months. We found five such fights since 1980, four of them in Las Vegas. Manny Pacquiao was the challenger in two.