In most unfortunate news, the highly anticipated first defense of Sergey Lipinets’s IBF junior welterweight title against pound for pound elite Mikey Garcia has been postponed. It doesn’t appear that it will be delayed more than a few weeks, but it will not be happening on February 10th. A minor hand injury is to blame.
Considered a top prospect since his professional debut in 2014, Sergey Lipinets (13-0, 10 KOs) won his belt last time out in November. That night the Russian junior welterweight triumphed against Akihiro Kondo on points. The Japanese fighter did make it more of a contest than originally anticipated though. Despite having the belt, however, Lipinets was and is still going to be a big underdog against pound for pound elite fighter Mikey Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs).
Miguel “Mikey” Garcia will be going for a world title in his fourth weight class when this is rescheduled. That would make him the fourth Mexican fighter to achieve this behind Erik Morales, Jorge Arce, and Juan Manuel Marquez. He is indisputably one of the best fighters in all of boxing. If there is one caveat to this fight in terms of the Mexican’s chances to win, it is that this will only be Garcia’s second fight at 140 lbs. I don’t expect it to be an issue though.
According to reports, this is a minor hand injury that Lipinets has suffered and they are only looking to push the fight back a month at most. The PBC team is looking to rebook the Alamodome. Unfortunately, all the fights on the undercard of the event will likely be delayed with it. This includes the rematch between Rances Barthelemy (26-0, 13 KOs) and Kiryl Relikh (21-2, 19 KOs) for the vacant WBA junior welterweight title as well. Their first fight’s decision was controversial thanks to Showtime scoring the fight for Relikh, but I thought Barthelemy won fair. The cards were too wide though. Either way, it was a fun fight and it is too bad the rematch is being pushed back too.
