Joe Joyce has been stripped of the EBU heavyweight title after refusing to take on mandatory challenger Marco Huck.

Huck Box Promotions won the purse bids for the fight with an offer for 260,000 Euro but by then Joyce was already set to fight Carlos Takam.

Huck will now fight the highest ranked available challenger and while the big names - like Joyce - are occupied elsewhere, there is still a number of good fighters that might be interested. The list includes Agit Kabayel, Tony Yoka, Kubrat Pulev, Dereck Chisora and Daniel Dubois.

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Frenchman Karim Guerfi is now a four-time EBU champ - in two different weight divisions which isn't bad at all for someone whose best weight is probably still at flyweight.

Guerfi, who lost the EBU bantamweight title to Lee McGregor in March, got the chance to fight for the EBU 126 lb title this past weekend and outscored Andoni Gago on a split decision.

Karim began his career as a flyweight and challenged for the WBA title back in 2012 and lost to Juan Carlos Reveco. He's since won, lost and regained the EBU bantamweight title three times through 2013 and 2021. 

The strength and body punches from Lee McGregor was too much for Guerfi and he lost the title in March but got the chance to challenge for the EBU featherweight title against Andoni Gago when Spanish promoters MGZ made this fight late July to salvage a show that would have had Samir Ziani vs John Carter as headliner.

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IBF cruiserweight champ Mairis Briedis could be defending the title in Poland against IBF # 2 Michal Cieslak (21-1), reports bokser.org. The fight might go ahead September 24 in either Gliwice or Gdansk. 

There's been some talk of Briedis moving up to heavyweight or a title unification fight against Lawrence Okolie but nothing as of yet materialized.