By Keith Idec

Kathy Duva could’ve taken the easy way out.

She could’ve accepted an offer from one of the countless aged and/or irrelevant heavyweights who volunteered to replace Eddie Chambers once the contender from Philadelphia withdrew Friday from his fight against Sergei Liakhovich on eight days notice. Duva, whose promotional company, Totowa-N.J.-based Main Events, represents Liakhovich, also could’ve served up an upproven prospect to the former WBO champion in the inaugural main event in the NBC Sports Network’s “Fight Night” series.

Instead, she took an unconventional approach to solving the problem. Duva replaced Liakhovich-Chambers with a main event that’ll feature two unbeaten, but unknown heavyweights prospects from Philadelphia. Maurice Byarm (13-0-1, 9 KOs), who now fights out of Washington, D.C., and Bryant Jennings (11-0, 5 KOs) will go at it in a 10-round fight Saturday night at Asylum Arena in Philadelphia.

“Our theory behind this series was that they’re going to be great fights to watch,” Duva said, “and putting Sergei in against … when somebody called me up and offered Tye Fields, I took that as a sign. This is not what we want. This is not what this series is about. I think real fight fans would rather watch a great fight between two promising, young fighters than watch Sergei in a fight where the outcome is predetermined.”

Duva’s matchmakers, Russell Peltz and Jolene Mizzone, tried for the better part of two days to replace Chambers, who suffered fractured ribs during training. Former contenders Larry Donald (42-5-3, 24 KOs), who’s 45 and hasn’t fought in 4½ years, and Fres Oquendo, who’s 38 and hasn’t fought in 13 months, were among those that wanted to substitute for Chambers.

“We did go through a lot of guys, and it was all the same story,” Duva said. “Hadn’t been in the ring for four years, hadn’t been in the ring for two years. Lost their last fight, and got knocked down in every round. Everybody that was willing to do this were obviously people that had no other options. There was a reason there were no other options.

“We started out with a couple of good, good possibilities that would’ve been good, strong replacements. And either the fighter wanted the fight, and the manager talked him out of it … most of the time that was it. Or it was the manager wanted the fight, the fighter wanted to do it, and then the trainer talked him out of it. And so after about a day-and-a-half of that, we said, ‘You know what, we have to go in a different direction. We’re not going to get anything good.’ ”

The last thing Duva wanted to do was force a mismatch upon her new partner, NBC Sports Network, which televised various lopsided fights when the station, then known as Versus, had an exclusive agreement with Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc. a couple years ago. Byarm and Jennings are virtually anonymous, even among hardcore fight fans, but Duva contends that won’t matter if they produce the entertaining fight she expects Saturday night.

“This fight is a great fight, short notice or not,” Duva said. “These are two guys who’ve known each other their whole lives, and really, really, really want to fight each other.”

The Byarm-Jennings fight will be one of three televised by NBC Sports Network, beginning at 9 p.m. ET.

The co-feature will pit Philadelphia’s Gabriel Rosado (18-5, 10 KOs) against Mexico’s Jesus Soto Karass (24-6-3, 16 KOs) in a 10-round junior middleweight match. Cruiserweights Damar Singleton (8-0, 4 KOs), of Toledo, Ohio, and Sullivan Barrera (8-0, 6 KOs), of Miami, will square off in the third televised bout, a six-rounder that’ll be broadcast between the other two fights.

“It’s a terrific show, top to bottom,” Duva said. “I think every fight is interesting, and I don’t know who’s going to win any of them.”

Keith Idec covers boxing for The Record and Herald News, of Woodland Park, N.J., and BoxingScene.com.