By Steve Kim

WBA featherweight titlist, Nicholas Walters, was all set to defend his title on March 21st at the Theater of Madison Square Garden as the co-feature to Terrence Crawford's debut in New York City, but his adviser Robert Mittleman broke the news on Monday that the 'Axe-Man' would be pulled from that assignment because of the flu.

"I don't know about (Nicholas) but I'm heart-broken,"Mittleman told Boxingscene.com."It was a fight in New York, all that press, I liked the opponent( Gamalier Rodriguez), he's a tough guy who comes to fight - that's what I'm looking for for Nick, punchers that want to come fight him, I'm not looking for runners - everything was fine.

"What happened was he did some celebrating from beating (Nonito) Donaire, that's to be expected, so he took a couple weeks off in the gym but he was right back in the gym in November. He was working pretty steady, then came Christmas and New Years and then he was up for the 'Male Athlete of the Year' in Jamaica. No boxer had won it since Mike McCallum, in 1994, that's 21 years,"explained Mittleman, who works alongside manager Jacques Deschamps with Walters.

Mittleman continued,"So he stood in Jamaica and truth be told, he did not train, had nothing scheduled at that time. He gained weight and I told Carl Moretti( V.P. of Boxing Operations for Top Rank),'We need eight weeks.' The first day Top Rank gave us was April 18th, that was fine. Then Carl called me and said,"March 28th." I said,'That'll be OK,'then they switched it to the 21st.

"I so badly wanted him to fight in New York, he'd get more media there in one week than he's gotten in his whole career because he's a different guy now since he beat Donaire. But he caught the flu being in Jamaica, being in all these meetings, in air conditioning, then outside. I mean, it's the flu season people are catching it anyways but in his case it was rapid. He probably had a hundred meetings in three weeks with sponsors, television people. So he came back from Jamaica to Panama, on the plan he realized he had the flu.

"So the next day he went to the doctor and the doctor said,'You can't train for at least a week and then after you're better the first week you're going to be weak while you're training.'"

It's too early too tell who Top Rank will now slot in the co-feature on April 18th and when Walters will be rescheduled.

"I called Carl and said,'Can we get a new date immediately?' If would've had the original date there would've been no problem but I'm not going to put Nicholas Walters in a fight with anybody unless he's 100-percent,"stated Mittleman.

Steve Kim is the News Editor for BoxingScene.com