The million-dollar question is whether he’ll have to fight Teofimo Lopez for the belt. Lopez holds the WBA welterweight title, but he is aiming for a unification bout against WBC champion Ryan Garcia in early 2027.

Catterall’s position as Lopez’s mandatory challenger complicates whether the Brooklyn native would enter a bout against Garcia (26-2, 21 KOs, 1 NC) as a world champion.

The WBA ordered Lopez (23-2, 13 KOs) to face Catterall on September 22. Their bout will go to a purse bid if the two sides can’t reach a deal by Thursday.

If Catterall’s promoter, Matchroom Boxing chairman Eddie Hearn, had his preference, Lopez, 29, would honor his mandatory obligation and face the 33-year-old English southpaw next rather than potentially being stripped of the title and squaring off against the 28-year-old Garcia.

“If you want to fight Ryan Garcia on Cinco de Mayo, no problem,” Hearn said in an interview on Matchroom Boxing’s YouTube channel. “Fight Jack Catterall in December or January, and if you’re that good, then go and fight Ryan Garcia. We haven’t been screaming and shouting whilst other people have about what’s going to happen in the WBA resolution because we know our position.

“We’re extremely confident. We know that will be upheld, and we look forward to negotiations. The purse bids – I don’t think they’re going to really want to negotiate, so we just go to purse bids, and then if he wants to vacate, he vacates. Hopefully, Teofimo will take the fight like a champion, and then the winner can move on to a big fight.”

Lopez, The Ring’s No. 3-ranked welterweight contender for a vacant championship, won the WBA welterweight title via a majority decision over Rolando “Rolly” Romero on August 22 in Las Vegas. The Ring’s Mike Coppinger reported on the most recent episode of “Inside The Ring” that Lopez plans to face Garcia next, regardless of whether he has the WBA welterweight title.

Catterall (33-2, 14 KOs), ranked No. 4 among The Ring’s welterweight contenders, became the WBA “regular” champion thanks to a unanimous-decision victory over Shakhram Giyasov on May 23 at Pyramids of Giza in Egypt.

“People have got to respect their mandatory position, and they’ve got to take the challenge,” Hearn said. “You talk about these other fights. Why not fight Jack Catterall? It’s part of being a champion. You don’t really get to say, ‘Oh, I don’t like that mandatory. I won’t make as much money in that fight as I make in another fight, that’s a bit of a tricky fight, or high risk, low reward,’ or whatever excuse you want to make around it. Tough s***. That’s what you do as a champion. You fight your contenders, and you fight your mandatory challengers.”