Who Will Jessica McCaskill Fight Next?

Jessica McCaskill’s first welterweight title defense is set.

Back on August 15, McCaskill challenged Cecilia Brækhus for the WBA, WBC, IBF, WBO, and IBO Female Welterweight Titles. McCaskill unseated Brækhus via majority decision. It’s the lone defeat in Brækhus’ 37-fight career.

It didn’t take long for Brækhus to invoke her rematch clause. Matchroom Boxing has announced that McCaskill vs. Brækhus II is a go and it’ll take place sometime in early 2021.

Here’s what McCaskill said in Matchroom Boxing’s announcement.

“That’s the fastest retirement I’ve ever seen in boxing history – she’s back!” said McCaskill. “We knew she would be back and that it would only be a matter of time. Usually those types of conversations straight after a fight to direct the audience’s eyes away from the loss. In this sport, so many people have said that they are retired and then come back to have fights.”

Brækhus said that she felt ill-prepared ahead of her first encounter with McCaskill and still believes the judges got it wrong.

“It was the weakest performance in my whole career,” said Brækhus. “I still feel I won, or could have got a draw, and when I thought about that, I knew I could beat her in a rematch. I didn’t want to go out with a career-worst performance either, I definitely owe that to my fans. If this was a fight where I lost to a better fighter, had been in my best shape and had given it my all, then fine, I could retire, but that was not the case here.”

Brækhus went 36-0 before losing to McCaskill. She had been contemplating retiring after the defeat but clearly she has other ideas at the moment.

McCaskill is riding a four-fight winning streak. Her last defeat was back on December 13, 2017, against Katie Taylor for the WBA Female Lightweight Title.