For Sanchez, the timing comes at a cost. The extension pushes him closer to a full year between fights, a damaging stretch for a heavyweight whose recent seasons have already been defined more by inactivity than momentum.
Sanchez is promoted by Warriors Boxing and Ural Boxing and co-managed by Mike Borao and Lupe Valencia. Torrez has been signed with Top Rank since turning professional after winning a silver medal at the delayed Tokyo Olympics. On paper, the game is simple. In practice, it followed the same pattern that had stalled Sanchez’s progress for more than a year.
That pattern includes a long list of heavyweights who have turned down regular opportunities to face Sanchez in the finals. Among those who succeeded at various stages were Filip Hrgovic, former IBF titleholder Daniel Dubois, Moses Itauma and Efe Ajagba. Torrez himself previously declined before the IBF’s rotation returned to him.
Ajagba’s case went the furthest. Their ordered re-application reached a purse hearing, which was won by Sampson Boxing, before Ajagba eventually withdrew after objecting to his share of the purse. Hrgovic and Dubois each allowed their negotiations to drift to the brink of hearings before choosing alternate paths. Itauma’s team rejected talks outright.
Torrez accepted negotiations after a first-round knockout of Tomas Salek last November in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. It was only his second fight of 2025, making it his least active year since turning professional. Sanchez’s year was even quieter. He fought once in 2025, stopping Ramon Olivas Echeverria in February, after a one-fight 2024 campaign that ended with his first professional loss, a seventh-round stoppage by Agit Kabayel.
Since then, Sanchez’s prolonged inactivity has been largely linked to the IBF elimination process itself. While the heavyweight division continued to move, its position remained static.
If Sanchez vs Torrez is finalized, the winner will become the IBF’s mandatory challenger, although that designation comes with uncertainty. Oleksandr Usyk has already vacated the WBO title and faces overdue commitments with the WBC and WBA, both of which remain ahead of the IBF in the rotation.
Extensions can keep negotiations alive, but they also quietly decide who waits and who moves on. In this case, the delays have fallen almost entirely on Sanchez, while the heavyweight division continues to progress elsewhere. That imbalance is now part of the record, whether the fight is ultimately made or not.
Source note: Reporting context and factual timeline informed by coverage from goat scene. Article independently structured and written.
