According to Dan Rafael of espn.com, the Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. – Pawel Wolak fight scheduled for Saturday night as part of a Top Rank PPV card is off due to Chavez being ill but the rest of the show will go on that will feature two title fights.
Chavez woke up with a 103-degree temperature on Tuesday and won’t fight, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum told ESPN.com.
“He looked like he had shaken it and he worked out Monday. I was there and I saw it,” said Bob Arum, who will promote the show from Anaheim, California. “His legs were a little tight but he worked out OK. [Tuesday morning] he got up with a 103 fever. He tried. You can’t fault the kid. You can’t put him in a fight with a temperature. It is absolutely legitimate.”
Instead of the Chavez-Wolak main event, Arum said he would elevate the scheduled co-feature, a 12-round bantamweight match between the Philippines’ pound-for-pound-ranked Nonito Donaire (24-1, 16 KOs) and former bantamweight titlist Wladimir Sidorenko (22-2-2, 7 KOs) of Ukraine.
“He got sick last Thursday after sparring and we kind of knew something was wrong,” strength coach Alex Ariza told ESPN.com. “He felt a little weak, but he finished 10 rounds [of sparring] but he kept telling Freddie he wasn’t in the groove. We thought maybe it was just a bad day, but later that night when he did an interview he started getting the cold sweats.
“He got back in the ring on Monday. He did four rounds, but once he started hitting the mitts with Freddie, he had cramps in his legs and later that night when we went to my house, he had a low-grade fever. [Tuesday morning] he woke up around 7 when we were going to train and he had a higher fever, about 102 or 103, and we knew this was more serious than we thought. I reported to Bob and he said if the kid is sick, he’s sick and there’s nothing we can do about it between now and Saturday.”
Arum said Wolak (27-1, 17 KOs) would remain on the televised portion of the card and could face Mexico’s Jose Pinzon (18-1-1, 12 KOs), although Wolak and his team wanted to view a video of Pinzon before committing to the bout.
Also on the card: lightweight titlist Humberto Soto (53-7-2, 32 KOs) of Mexico defends his belt against Urbano Antillon (28-1, 20 KOs) of Maywood, Calif., and featherweight contender Miguel Angel “Mikey” Garcia (23-0, 19 KOs) of Oxnard, Calif., faces Olivier Lontchi (18-1-2, 8 KOs) of Montreal.
“I’m not going to cancel the show,” Arum said. “Anyone who wants a refund at the gate can get a refund. But you can’t cancel the show and do that to the kids who were getting ready to fight for the past six or eight weeks. You have an obligation if you can to follow through on the card.”
