According to a report on ESPN, Hasim Rahman has withdrawn from his upcoming fight against Alexander Povetkin due to injury. Rahman aggravated a cyst on his right wrist during training, and could no longer compete at full strength.
The Povetkin vs. Rahman clash had originally been scheduled for July 14th as part of the undercard for the David Haye vs. Dereck Chisora bout, however, had been relocated to an event hosted in Hamburg, Germany. The fight had also been scheduled to be televised on EPIX in the United States.
Regardless, Team Rahman is confident that the fight will still take place sooner than later. According to them, they’re still the mandatory, and their contract allows for a postponement due to injury.
At the end of the day, this is terrible news for boxing fans. Not because anybody was excited about Povetkin-Rahman — because nobody was. It’s a terrible thing because the only result is that Rahman’s injury delays Povetkin’s career further, and forces us to wait several more months until seeing Povetkin vs. Rahman over and done with. Let’s be honest here:
- Povetkin has a fake title belt. Wladimir Klitschko won the WBA heavyweight title from David Haye. But since he already had a belt, and unified them, the WBA dubbed him — “super champion”.
- This leaves them in position to collect more sanctioning fees from more fights. And it leaves fighters, such as Povetkin, who are completely unwilling to try their hand at meeting somebody like a Klitschko in the ring, an opportunity to pay those fees and get a shiny trinket for themselves.
- Rahman is one of the most absurd mandatory fighters in recent history, and that’s saying a great deal as any long suffering boxing fan will tell you. Since being knocked out by Wladimir Klitschko – and he didn’t come anywhere close to deserving that fight four years ago – he has fought five times, against five absolute nobodies.
So what we have here is a fake champion, and a ridiculous challenger, and we have to wait longer to see it happen. Great news, fight fans.
