By Elliot Foster
Lee Haskins has suffered an injury and is out of his next fight.
The IBF bantamweight champion had been scheduled to make the third defence of his crown later this month.
But a leg injury, confirmed by his manager Chris Sanigar to Boxing Monthly’s Danny Winterbottom on Thursday, has put paid to the idea of the Bristol-born ‘Playboy’ getting in another outing before the year’s end.
Haskins, 33, has a record of 34-3 with 14 early and was last in action on September 10, exclusively live on Sky Sports Box Office at London’s O2 Arena.
He was set to return on December 31, at the Shimazu Arena in Kyoto, Japan, against a man 10 years his junior in the shape of former Japanese bantamweight champion Shohei Omori.
Omori has a record of 17-1 with 12 early endings and the southpaw’s only defeat to date is to the current WBO king Marlon Tapales, who knocked him out inside two of 12 scheduled rounds last December.
Haskins-Omori was set to feature on a card, promoted by Woz Promotions, which will also showcase Jonathan Guzman’s defence of the IBF super-bantamweight title against Yukinori Oguni and Kazuto Ioka’s WBA flyweight world title defence against Yutthana Kaensa.
However, the return of world champion Haskins will now be delayed until some point in 2017.
