Herring- Oquendo WBO title fight back on again for September

The twice cancelled WBO Jr. Lightweight Title fight between champ, Jamel Herring, and Jonathan Oquendo is reportedly back on for the Top Rank Boxing Las Vegas “bubble” in September.

ESPN’s Steve Kim reported that the fight, twice stopped just days before it happened previously because Herring tested positive for Covid 19, will now be Saturday September 5th.

Further confirmation of Kim’s report is Herring himself posting on social media Monday night that he has resumed training for his latest 130 lb. title defense:

Welp… 3rd times a charm. Hit that training camp reset button. pic.twitter.com/p4UOLG80Us

— Jamel Herring (@JamelHerring) July 27, 2020

Herring was to have fought Oquendo in his second title defense back in June. However, he showed symptoms of Coronavirus two weeks before the fight and tested positive postponing the title defense. However, the fight was rescheduled for July 14th for the Las Vegas “bubble” and Herring, despite not having any lingering symptoms and having trained for two weeks before, came up positive still for the virus just before the Monday weigh-in.

Herring was at a loss at that time, as to why he would still be “positive” saying in a statement,

“I’m extremely disappointed that I’m not going to be able to fight tomorrow night. As I’ve shared previously, I tested positive for COVID-19 on June 22 after exhibiting symptoms. I quarantined and recovered as directed by my doctor. I then retested on July 3 and my test was negative, so this result is a complete surprise. 

But, then as we wrote, Herring disputed the findings of the Nevada Athletic Commission testing saying that he had passed the anti-bodies test and that the test showing that he still had the virus wasn’t completely reliable. Herring later documented on social media that a separate Covid 19 test two days after the cancelled reschedule of the fight showed he didn’t still have the virus.

Well… I just got my COVID-19 test results from YESTERDAY back, doing the same oral swab test I did on the 12th. I’ll just leave this here. pic.twitter.com/6FhQfmKBNr

— Jamel Herring (@JamelHerring) July 15, 2020

Herring is 21 – 2 and was in line to fight Ireland’s Carl Frampton in Belfast in June before the Covid-19 pandemic shut down all of sports back in March. He was last in the ring winning in November, when he scored a 12-round decision over Lamont Roach for his first title defense.

The Former U.S. Marine had won the WBO title on Memorial Day of 2019 capturing the belt by 12 decision over Japan’s Masayuki Ito.