By Igor Lazorin, tass

On Saturday night at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, Sergey Lipinets won a unanimous decision over Akihiro Kondo for the vacant IBF junior welterweight title. Lipinets raised his record to 13-0 with 10 knockouts. Kondo fell to 29-7-1, losing for the first time in nine fights.

The 28-year-old Lipinets of Kazakhstan won despite dealing with a cut on the forehead that bled for the final six rounds.

He won 118-111 on one judge’s card and 117-111 on two others even though Kondo, fighting outside of his native Japan for the first time, carried much of the action in the second half of the bout.

The world title became vacant after Terence Crawford announced his decision to move up to the welterweight limit of 147-pounds.

Lipinets and his team were very disappointed, as they saw Crawford as a very big fight against the biggest name at the weight.

But now another lucrative opportunity could be creeping up in their path.

According to Lipinets' manager, Alex Vaysfeld of Union Boxing Management, his boxer will make the first defense of his world title on a date in March and the opponent being targeted is former four division world champion Adrien Broner (33-3, 24 KOs).

Broner was ringside at the Barclays Center, watching Lipinets win the title.

"The next fight will be held in March, it will be a defense against Broner," Vaysfeld said.

Broner has been out of the ring since losing a twelve round unanimous decision at the hands of Mikey Garcia in July. Broner's other two defeats came at the hands of Shawn Porter and Marcos Maidana.

Broner held titles at super featherweight, lightweight, welterweight and junior welterweight. He captured the WBA world title at 140-pounds in 2015 with a stoppage of Khabib Allakhverdiev. The reign was short-lived as he failed to make weight for next fight, a title defense against Ashley Theophane. He was also unable to make the 140 limit for the following fight, earlier this year against Adrian Granados. But there were no weight related issues when he fought Garcia.