On August 14, the WBO ordered its super middleweight champion to defend his title against Alimkhanuly, the No. 1 contender and mandatory challenger. However, Sheeraz (24-0-1, 19 KOs) was apoplectic with its ruling.

Heading into his three-belt middleweight unification bout against Erislandy Lara in December 2025, Alimkhanuly (17-0, 12 KOs) tested positive for meldonium, a banned substance.

As a result, his bout against Lara was canceled. The hard-hitting Kazakh was also suspended for one year. The IBF chose to strip him of his middleweight title, while the WBO allowed him to remain champion.

Yet on July 20, Alimkhanuly announced that he was moving up. Shortly after, the WBO named Alimkhanuly as Sheeraz’s mandatory challenger. They also stated that he was no longer suspended.

Their stance originally angered Sheeraz. But while he doesn’t believe Alimkhanuly should be allowed to skip the line and fight him, as long as he’s being financially rewarded, he’s willing to do it.

“We’ll fight, we accept the fight. Let’s crack on,” Sheeraz told Ring’s CEO Rick Reeno on the Mr. Verzace Podcast.

“I haven’t gotten an offer from DAZN, Queeensberry (Sheeraz’s promoter) Top Rank (Alimkhanuly’s promoter). So now the fight goes to purse bids. We’ll see what happens. We’re prize fighters, we fight for the right amount of money.”

That purse bid is set to take place this Wednesday, September 16 with a $300,000 minimum acceptable bid.

Sheeraz, coming off a lackluster majority decision win over Simon Zachenhuber on July 25, doesn’t want to get his hopes up. Despite being willing to overlook Alimkhanuly's previous transgressions and fight him, he may not be willing if the money isn't worth it.

“I believe it’s going to come to a point where the money is gonna be considerably low for the biggest fight of my career,” Sheeraz continued.

“To me, it doesn’t really make sense. Especially being a champion as well. It could be a good offer, I’m praying it is and then it’s simple, the fight goes ahead. But I have a funny feeling that it won’t be. We’ll see what happens.”