Hughie Fury felt well enough Friday to weigh in for his fight Saturday against Pavel Sour.
Something transpired by Saturday, however, to cause the British heavyweight to withdraw from their scheduled 10-rounder in Monte Carlo. A spokesman for Matchroom Boxing, Fury’s promoter, announced Saturday that a virus caused Fury to pull out of their fight at the 11th hour.
The 25-year-old Fury (23-3, 13 KOs), a cousin of lineal heavyweight champ Tyson Fury, had hoped to bounce back Saturday from a one-sided, 12-round, unanimous-decision loss to former WBA heavyweight champ Alexander Povetkin (35-2, 24 KOs) on August 31 at O2 Arena in London. The 6-feet-6 Fury weighed in Friday at 234 pounds, six fewer than the Czech Republic’s Sour (11-2, 6 KOs), who officially weighed 240 pounds.
The remainder of Saturday’s card at Casino de Monte Carlo remains intact.
In the main event, Russian contenders Alexander Besputin (13-0, 9 KOs) and Radzhab Butaev (12-0, 9 KOs) will square off in a 12-round fight for the unclaimed WBA world welterweight title. In the co-featured fight, undisputed women’s welterweight champ Cecilia Braekhus (35-0, 9 KOs), of Bergen, Norway, will defend her IBF, IBO, WBA, WBC and WBO 147-pound crowns against Argentina’s Victoria Bustos (19-5) in a 10-rounder.
Also Saturday, Chinese heavyweight contender Zhang Zhilei (20-0, 16 KOs) is set to encounter Ukraine’s Andriy Rudenko (32-4, 20 KOs, 1 NC) in a 10-round bout. Zhilei was supposed to face Russia’s Sergey Kuzmin, but Kuzmin (15-0, 11 KOs) suffered a foot injury that caused him to pull out of their fight last week.
DAZN will stream this card live in the United States, starting at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT. Sky Sports will televise it live in the United Kingdom.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.
