By Michele Emrick
On Sunday, former middleweight champion Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. suffered a cut, forcing his upcoming bout with Brian Vera to be postponed.
The fight had been scheduled for Sept. 7, and was to be part of an HBO-televised card, serving as the main event. Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti said on Monday that the entire card would now be postponed and rescheduled for a later date.
“He got cut above the eye, but I don’t even know which eye, except that they told me it was serious enough where we are going to have to push back the fight a few weeks,” Moretti said. “He can’t have contact for three weeks. So we will confer with HBO and try to figure out a date when we can reschedule the fight.”
In addition to a date change, it may also be necessary to change the venue, considering the difficulty in securing an open date for the Staples Center.
“We have to match up the availability of the arena with the HBO schedule and go from there,” he said.
The fight was to be a return to action for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., who was last seen dropping a lopsided decision to Sergio Martinez in Las Vegas. Despite the one sided affair, Chavez did knock down Martinez in the 12th round, and almost forced a stoppage before running out of time.
The news continued to get worse for Chavez, who also tested positive for marijuana, which led to a nine month suspension and hefty fine.
Of course, whenever a delay in a fight is announced, it leads to speculation that something else was the actual culprit. There had been whispers that he was having trouble making weight, a claim that his camp denies, saying he was on track to make the cut to the 168 pound limit.
Brian Vera (23-6, 14 KO’s), originally became known to most boxing fans from his time as a competitor on “The Contender” reality series. He has been on a bit of a roll as of late, having won six of his last seven outings.
