One of the better match-ups during Saturday’s DAZN pay-per-view was thrown into disarray hours before the main card was set to get underway at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas when Richardson Hitchins withdrew from his IBF super lightweight boxing world title fight against challenger Oscar Duarte.
Ring Magazine were first to report the “illness” that kept Hitchins, of Matchroom, from defending his belt against Golden Boy’s Duarte.
Both Hitchins and Duarte weighed 140 pounds on Friday’s weigh-in, and they cleared the re-weigh Saturday morning, too, with Hitchins posting a weight of 149.4 pounds and Duarte scaling 149.6 — both comfortably inside the 10-pound rehydration limit the IBF imposed per its own rulings.
However, Hitchins reportedly fell ill shortly after the re-weigh.
While Hitchins is yet to comment, Duarte’s promoter Oscar de la Hoya was swift to issue his statement through his Instagram Stories, and expressed his suspicions that the American was simply afraid to throw hands with his boxer.
“I’ve literally never heard of a fighter, hours before a fight, get food poisoning,” said de la Hoya.
“I don’t know but something is fishy here. They’re called nerves. You fight through it.”
De la Hoya added: “You did the weigh-in last night, you did the weigh-in this morning but, suddenly, a couple hours before your fight you have food poisoning?
“Something is fishy to me,” he said. “I’m going to talk to the IBF. This fight must be rescheduled immediately.”
While Hitchins and Duarte await the next moves, the rest of the card goes ahead as planned.
In the main event, Mario Barrios defends his WBC welterweight world championship against Ryan Garcia, Frank Martin fights Nahir Albright in a super lightweight fight, and Gary Antuanne Russell takes on Andy Hiraoka, also at super lightweight.
The Ring Magazine event, called High Stakes, is co-promoted by TGB Promotions, who represent Barrios, and Golden Boy, which represents Garcia and Duarte.
Boxing Social is running a live blog of the entire main card, beginning 5 p.m. local time (PT) / 8 p.m. ET / 1 a.m. GMT.
