Junior welterweight world titleholder Sergey Lipinets suffered a hand injury in training and has postponed his first title defense.
Lipinets was scheduled to face lightweight world titleholder Mikey Garcia, who is seeking to win a world title in a fourth weight division, on Feb. 10 in the main event of a Showtime-televised card at the Alamodome in San Antonio. With the main event off, the entire card has been postponed, Ringstar Sports promoter Richard Schaefer told ESPN on Wednesday.
"We need to find out the extent of the injury, but it seems like it's nothing too serious so I think the fight will probably just be pushed back a few weeks," Schaefer said. "We have to coordinate with the Alamodome and see what dates are available and I need to talk to Showtime. So that's what we are working on today.
"The injury is not that serious from what I've been told [by Lipinets' team]. They think it's a sprain in the hand, but definitely nothing is broken or anything that would cause the fight to have to be pushed back by an extended period of time."
Lipinets (13-0, 10 KOs), 28, a Kazakhstan native fighting out of Beverly Hills, California, won a unanimous decision against Japan's Akihiro Kondo on Nov. 4 to claim a vacant world title -- one of the belts vacated by then-undisputed champion Terence Crawford in order to move up in weight.
Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs), 29, of Moreno Valley, California, has won world titles at featherweight and junior lightweight and still holds a lightweight belt. But rather than seek a unification fight against Jorge Linares or Robert Easter -- bouts that were possibilities -- he elected to fight for a second consecutive time at junior welterweight in an effort to win a world title in a fourth weight division.
Now it will have to wait, as will the other fights on the card, including a rematch between Rances Barthelemy (26-0, 13 KOs), a 31-year-old Cuban defector fighting out of Las Vegas, and Kiryl Relikh (21-2, 19 KOs), 28, of Belarus, for a vacant junior welterweight belt. Barthelemy won a controversial decision in their world title eliminator on May 20.
Two other notable fights also were on the postponed card:
• A welterweight world title eliminator between Ray Robinson (24-2, 12 KOs), 31, of Philadelphia, and Yordenis Ugas (20-3, 9 KOs), 31, a Cuban defector fighting out of Miami, that would have moved the winner a step closer to a mandatory shot at the belt held by Errol Spence Jr.
• A lightweight world title eliminator pitting Richard Commey (25-2, 22 KOs), 30, of Ghana, against Alejandro Luna (22-0, 15 KOs), 26, of Bellflower, California, for the right to challenge for the world title currently held by Easter.