By James Slater: Wow! Three fights, two of them “world” title fights, postponed in one day. Once-beaten, hugely popular 168-pound prospect/contender Fernando Guerrero has had to pull out of his scheduled bout this Friday, against Chris Fitzpatrick. Unbeaten British super-middleweight star George Groves then announced that he will be unfit to face Robert Stieglitz in the scheduled WBO title bout of May 5th – and now, undefeated Welshman Nathan Cleverly has announced he will not be defending his WBO light-heavyweight belt against Robin Krasniqi as planned for April 28th.
Let’s hope that this number of disappointments stays at three. It would be truly awful if either Floyd Mayweather Junior or Miguel Cotto suffered an injury or fell ill and had to pull out of the biggest fight, maybe even the biggest card of the year. Come to that, it would be bad enough if Saul Alvarez and/or “Sugar” Shane Mosley had to pull out of the spot they are set to share in May 5th’s co-main event.
Postponements seem to be in the air right now, that’s for sure. And with some other big, big match-ups set for the coming weeks and months – Bernard Hopkins-Chad Dawson II, Carl Froch-Lucian Bute, Manny Pacquiao-Tim Bradley, Victor Ortiz-Andre Berto II and, not quite so big but significant nonetheless, Eddie Chambers-Tomasz Adamek, Seth Mitchell-Chazz Witherspoon, David Price-Sam Sexton, Wladimir Klitschko-Tony Thompson II – fight fans may be crossing their fingers, hoping no more action falls by the wayside.
Of course, injuries and illnesses can happen to any athlete – the good news is neither Mayweather nor Cotto has a history of pulling out of fights. Right now, with all the bad news that has hit the sport, 2012 would really suffer as far as being a stellar year if the “Ring Kings” card had to be scrapped.
Is it just me, or are there more and more fighters having to pull out of a fight these days?