WBO middleweight champion Billy Joe Saunders (23-0 12 KOs) will make the first defense of his title after a long hiatus from the sport of boxing against Artur Akavov (16-1 7 KOs) on Frank Warren’s October 22 Motorpoint Arena Cardiff show.

Akavov is on a winning streak and holds the European version of the WBO title, but considering both Daniel Jacobs and Gennady Golovkin wanted to fight Saunders, this seems very stale.

Saunders was suppose to fight on Fury-Klitschko II on October 29th, but that card is now scrapped.