Alycia Baumgardner Won the IBF Lightweight Title and Caroline Dubois Came to the Ring: What Happens Next
Alycia Baumgardner moved up five pounds, took a world title off an undefeated champion, and then had her next fight walk to the ring to find her. That is a productive Sunday night.
Baumgardner beat IBF lightweight champion Elif Nur Turhan by unanimous decision on Nov. 8 at College Park Center in Arlington, Texas, headlining a Most Valuable Promotions card on ESPN. All three judges scored it 100-90 across 10 three-minute rounds. Turhan, 14-0 coming in, lost for the first time as a professional.
Baumgardner is now a two-division world champion at 32, and she remains the only woman to have held undisputed status at 130 pounds.
It Was a Shutout, and It Looked Like One
CompuBox credited Baumgardner with 195 total punches landed to Turhan’s 50. She badly hurt the champion late in the third round, in a sequence muddled by the bell and an early referee intervention, and hurt her again in the seventh. Turhan kept coming forward. She also did not win a round on any of the three cards.
“I am the face of women’s boxing. I stepped up. I knew she hit hard,” Baumgardner told ESPN afterward. “I came out victorious, and I’m thankful. It takes a lot of work to get here, and I’m a two-time world champ.”
Baumgardner is 19-1 with seven knockouts and a no-contest, the last of those coming on an accidental head clash with Delfine Persoon in 2024. She became the inaugural undisputed super featherweight champion in February 2023 and vacated her WBC belt at 130 in September 2025 so she could fight three-minute rounds.
Caroline Dubois Did Not Wait for an Invitation
Dubois holds the WBC, WBO and Ring Magazine lightweight titles. She was at ringside, and she was in the ring almost as soon as the decision was read.
“Are we going to fight?” Dubois asked, per Sky Sports. Baumgardner’s answer pointed her somewhere else: “You’ve got a champ right there in front of you.”
That is a reference to Stephanie Han, the unbeaten WBA champion at 135, whom Dubois is scheduled to fight on Feb. 20, 2027, live on Sky Sports. Dubois is 25 and 14-0-1 with five knockouts.
She has no interest in a partial version of this. “What’s the point of moving up in weight and having one belt?” she told Sky Sports. “There’s no point going halfway, you go all the way.” She also said she saw the move up coming: “Of course, I knew it was going to happen. I said it. I said that there was nothing left for her at 130. The biggest test for her career is going to be against me.”
What Is Signed and What Is Not
Nothing between Baumgardner and Dubois is signed. There is no date, no venue, no broadcaster and no purse split. What exists is two fighters saying in public that they want it, which in boxing is where fights start and also where a lot of them stop.
Dubois has to get past Han in February. Baumgardner’s situation one division down is unresolved: the IBF does not normally allow a fighter to hold its title in two weight classes, and she has not said what becomes of the belts she still carries at 130.
The rest of the card was worth the money. Ramla Ali took the vacant IBF and WBO super bantamweight titles by split decision over Mikiah Kreps after dropping her in the third. Irma Garcia unified the IBF and WBA super flyweight belts over Nataly Delgado. Skye Nicolson retained her WBC super bantamweight title by decision over Miyo Yoshida. Albina Moldazhanova stopped Kirstie Bavington in 44 seconds of the fourth round and is now 6-0 with a knockout in every fight.
The undisputed lightweight championship is the fight to make here: Dubois’ three belts against Baumgardner’s one, a 25-year-old who has never lost against a 32-year-old who has already done this at a lower weight. If it lands in 2027, it is the biggest fight in women’s boxing.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
