The planned heavyweight main event between Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller and Michael Hunter is off, with both sides casting blame on the other. The fight was scheduled for September 11, earlier in the fight week headlined by Canelo Alvarez and Terence Crawford.
WBA No. 1-ranked Hunter, 24-1-2 (17 KOs), and No. 3-ranked Miller, 26-1-2 (22 KOs), faced obstacles beginning with a cease-and-desist letter filed last week by Hunter promoter Don King regarding Saudi Arabia boxing financier Turki Alalshikh’s effort to stage the bout on DAZN from the Fontainebleau Las Vegas.
King is planning an October 4 WBA secondary title fight between champion Kubrat Pulev and Hunter, with which the proposed Hunter-Miller fight conflicted.
On Thursday, Miller posted a letter from Southern California-based fight promoter Steve Bash that read, “As a result of various unresolved legal and regulatory issues … we cannot proceed with the bout as originally contemplated.”
Among those issues, BoxingScene learned Thursday, was the absence of a formal request to the Nevada Athletic Commission to stage the bout.
While that could get handled expeditiously along with Hunter’s licensing to fight in the state, the commission has not received drug test results from Miller, who has been previously suspended for positive tests, a regulator said.
Nevada requires clean drug tests of such fighters 30, 15 and three days before their bout. The scheduled fight date is 21 days away.
This would be consistent with Bash’s reference to “regulatory issues.”
“This unfortunate turn of events was not decided in isolation, as a variety of necessary partners indicated an unwillingness to proceed under the circumstances,” Bash wrote in a letter Miller posted on his Instagram page.
