The next televised boxing card scheduled to take place in the state of Minnesota will not happen amid the coronavirus pandemic.
BoxingScene.com learned Monday that Premier Boxing Champions has indefinitely postponed its card scheduled for April 11 at The Armory in Minneapolis. FOX was scheduled to televise three fights from that PBC show, which was to feature welterweights Jamal James and Thomas Dulorme in the 12-round main event.
Three days before the postponement of this “FOX PBC Fight Night” show in Minneapolis, a professional boxing card took place in nearby Hinckley, Minnesota. Showtime televised four fights from that 11-bout card Friday night as part of its “ShoBox: The New Generation” series.
The show Friday night at Grand Casino Hinckley was regulated by the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe Department of Athletic Regulation. The April 11 show fell under the jurisdiction of the Minnesota Office of Combative Sports.
Friday’s fights were contested without fans in attendance to help prevent the spread of coronavirus.
Minneapolis’ James (26-1, 12 KOs) and Dulorme (25-3-1, 16 KOs), a Las Vegas resident raised in Puerto Rico, were supposed to fight for the WBA’s interim welterweight title, that sanctioning organization’s third version of its 147-pound championship. The Philippines’ Manny Pacquiao (62-7-2, 39 KOs) is the WBA’s “super” welterweight champion.
Russia’s Alexander Besputin (14-0, 9 KOs) won the WBA’s “world” welterweight title in his last fight, but he tested positive for a banned substance following his 12-round, unanimous-decision defeat of Russia’s Radzhab Butaev (12-1, 9 KOs) on November 30 at Casino de Monte Carlo in Monte Carlo. Besputin’s status as a champion is under review, according to the WBA.
The co-featured fight April 11 was scheduled to pit 22-year-old Cuban David Morrell Jr. (2-0, 2 KOs) against Guyana’s Lennox Allen (22-0-1, 14 KOs) in a 12-rounder for the WBA’s interim world super middleweight crown. Junior middleweight prospect Joey Spencer (10-0, 7 KOs) also was slated to compete in a televised fight that night versus Denver’s Alejandro Ibarra (6-1, 2 KOs).
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.