WBO welterweight champion Brian Norman Jr. has suffered a left-hand injury and is off the November 8th card at the Scopes Center in Norfolk, Virginia. Norman Jr’s title defense against Derrieck Cuevas (27-1-1, 19 KOs) will be rescheduled for 2025.
Dan Rafael reports that Norman Jr. is off the card and will face Cuevas next year. This would have been the 23-year-old Norman’s first defense of his WBO title, but it’ll have to wait.
The November 8th event will still go, but one of the undercard fights will be moved up to the co-feature spot. In the headliner, lightweight contender Keyshawn Davis will face Gustavo Lemos. ESPN+ will show the event live.
Norman Jr. being criticized on social media for choosing not to agree to the $1.7 million offer to fight IBF champion Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis in a unification fight on November 9th in Philadelphia.
They feel that Norman wouldn’t have suffered a hand injury if he’d agreed to the $1.7M offer, which is silly. Norman Jr. wanted $2.2 million to fight Ennis in his hometown of Philadelphia.
His father, Brian Sr., said they would take the $1.7 million if the fight were staged in Las Vegas, but that wasn’t acceptable. It was a reasonable way to get the fight made, but Ennis’ management didn’t agree.
Norman Jr. is 23 years old and not in a mad rush to agree to lowball offers made to him for a fight against Ennis. It’s better that he turned it down because Boots’ promoter, Eddie Hearn, will likely increase that offer once Norman Jr. gains more attention.
In Norman Jr’s last fight, he knocked out Giovani Santillanlast May in San Diego. He won the WBO interim welterweight belt, later elevated to the full title.
NEWS: @trboxing & Team Norman tell me Brian Norman is dealing with a left hand injury, which has forced him out of his 1st defense against Derrieck Cuevas scheduled for Nov. 8 on ESPN+. Plans are to reschedule the bout in early 2025. #boxing
— Dan Rafael (@DanRafael1) October 1, 2024
Last Updated on 10/01/2024
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