Cain Ordered to Face Takuma Inoue for the WBC Bantamweight Title

Queensberry Promotions and ESPN's Salvador Rodriguez say the WBC has ordered Andrew Cain to fight Takuma Inoue for Inoue's WBC bantamweight title. The sanctioning body has not posted a written release on the order, and no deadline, purse bid or venue has been announced.

Rodriguez, posting Wednesday from the WBC's convention in Acapulco, wrote that champion Inoue must make the mandatory against Cain and shared a photograph of a convention slide that lists Cain as the "second mandatory due to vacant title." That slide, and the WBC's ratings page, say Inoue won the vacant belt against Tenshin Nasukawa on Nov. 24, 2025.

Cain is the British and WBC Silver bantamweight champion and was No. 1 in the WBC's Oct. 2 ratings. The council listed him as the second mandatory as early as March 2026, after earlier stating that Inoue, having won a vacant title, would have to make two mandatory defenses. Cain earned the position by stopping Alejandro Gonzalez in Liverpool on Feb. 7, after being dropped twice in the eighth round, a result reported by The Sun and the Liverpool Echo.

Inoue's first mandatory was a rematch with Nasukawa. He won that fight by unanimous decision — 114-113 and 116-111 twice — on Sept. 27 in Tokyo, the WBC said in its official report.