I just spoke to a Showtime representative who confirmed a BoxingScene account that one of the last remaining important fights of the year, Kendall Holt-Ricardo Torres III, is off. Torres informed everyone that he was having trouble making weight due to an illness and probably wouldn’t be able to get down to 140 lbs. — which Showtime, at least, was thankful for getting notice of this early as opposed to very late in the process.
HOWEVER, the Showtime show will go on. The network told me the replacement opponent for Holt is Demetrius Hopkins, nephew of Bernard, and given the caliber of opposition they might have been able to scrounge up at so late an hour, that’s a pretty decent substitution. Hopkins scored one of the best knockouts of 2006 when he starched Michael Warrick, but his 2007 wasn’t as glamorous owing to a highly dubious win over Steve Forbes that most thought Forbes won and that the judges had Hopkins winning easily. He had a falling out with his uncle/promoter and hasn’t fought yet in 2008, although he was expected to be on the undercard this weekend. They’ll fight for Holt’s title belt.
It’s hard not to be disappointed by Torres dropping out nonetheless, because I was intensely looking forward to this one. This weekend is going to be the weekend of withdrawals: On HBO, heavyweight Wladimir Klitschko was supposed to fight Alexander Povetkin, but ended up with Hasim Rahman after Povetkin injured his foot; on Versus, James Toney was supposed to fight Tony Thompson, but Thompson got sick and now he’ll end up with Fres Oquendo. Steve Cunningham-Tomasz Adamek on Versus Thursday for the undisputed cruiserweight (200 lbs.) championship, don’t fail me now…
