Brian Viloria’s unification bout with Hernan "Tyson" Marquez will take place Nov. 10 at a site to be determined, manager Gary Gittelsohn confirmed on Thursday.
Viloria (31-3, 18 KOs) will put his WBO flyweight title on the line against Marquez (34-2, 25 KOs), the WBA titleholder.
The winner will hold both belts.
Gittelsohn said the venue for the fight, which will be in Southern California, should be finalized within the next week.
"As always, anything can happen in boxing," he said. "I’m pretty confident … we’re preparing for the fight to take place on November 10."
The 12-round title bout was originally scheduled for Sept. 29 but was never officially announced because a site had not been secured.
In mid-August, an opportunity arose to make the fight a co-feature bout on last Saturday’s Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Sergio Martinez pay-per-view card in Las Vegas.
Gittelsohn said Marquez’s camp took more than a week before deciding against moving the fight up two weeks due to weight issues.
Marquez’s past two fights have come at 115 pounds instead of 112.
"When the invitation came to be the co-feature on the Chavez and Martinez card, we immediately accepted," Gittelsohn said. "What was worse is it took Marquez’s camp over a week to decide and during that time we lost opportunities to nail down a site for Sept. 29 because we weren’t sure we would be able to deliver the fight on that date."
Marquez hasn’t defended his WBA title since scoring a first-round TKO over Luis Concepcion in October 2011.
Top Rank has expressed interest in making the fight a co-feature on the Manny Pacquiao vs. Juan Manuel Marquez PPV on Dec. 8 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, but Gittelsohn said they’ve turned down the offer, not wanting to further delay Viloria’s training schedule.
"While I agree that the showcase is a meaningful one, we’ve already had to taper down Brian’s training once," Gittelsohn said. "Now Brian’s back on the mitts and started sparring again and I don’t want to have to bring him out of sparring again just to get him on the Pacquiao card."
Viloria, who is in the middle of his third run as world champion, has not fought since a TKO of Omar Nino Romero in May.
He’s been victorious in 12 of his past 13 fights and has won both of his WBO title defenses by TKO, stopping challenger Giovani Segura in the eighth round last December.
Viloria won the title with a decision win over Julio Cesar Miranda at the Blaisdell Arena 14 months ago.
Marquez has won his past seven fights after suffering his only two professional losses in consecutive bouts against Richie Mepranum and Nonito Donaire in 2010.
Marquez and Viloria are ranked 1-2 at 112 pounds by The Ring Magazine.
