Another Boxer Gets Covid-19: Scratching Main Event
More bad news for boxing as another boxer gets Covid-19, on the heels of Tyson Fury. The 24-year-old hard-hitting Conor Benn who’s been brought along slowly has been on a major roll going 18-0:
He has just had some bad news thrown his way, as he “popped” for the virus. Benn was due to be the main event this Saturday night against Adrian Granados Tigre. The welterweight young gun known as “The Destroyer”; last was in the ring tearing through Samuel Vargas. Now is he ready to hang with the upper echelon like Errol Spence, Bud Crawford, or Manny Pacquaio? No; but he’s well on his way. At least that’s what Matchroom Boxing Headman Eddie Hearn hopes for.
But where there’s bad, there’s good. The MB team has juggled the line-up moving everyone up a slot. And that means a bigger piece of the pie for them. The new main event will be WBA regular featherweight champion Can Xu against the 12th-ranked Leigh Wood. And the new co-main event is: Tommy McCarthy versus Chris Billiam-Smith for the British Commonwealth and European Championships. And moving onto the main card is former title challenger Avni Yildirim and Jack Cullen.
Saturday is one of those very busy days in combat sports with Bellator moving their card to the last day of the week, the UFC having a show (which also lost two fights), and this “bang up” boxing card. While it does happen in the afternoon in the U.S.; it’s still worthy of having eyes on it.
Hearn did release a statement saying: “We are conducting further PCR tests, but luckily the card is stacked. Conor Benn is in good spirits, he feels well. Of course, he’ll obey the isolation rules and reset and reschedule the fight with Adrian Granados.”
But what he didn’t say is whether he had been vaccinated. Granados, who is NO EASY OUT for anyone hasn’t as of yet made any public statements.