Cecilia Braekhus Out Of Harper Title Fight With Illness
Former women’s undisputed welterweight champion and one of the legends of women’s boxing for the past decade, Cecilia Braekhus, is ill and cannot participate in her scheduled Saturday night title bout. Braekhus was scheduled to fight for a junior welterweight world title Saturday night in Dublin, Ireland.
However, Braekhus broke her own news Saturday morning that she’s contracted what she believes is the Flu and is unable to challenge WBA women’s 154 lb. champ Terri Harper on the undercard of Katie Taylor and Chantelle Cameron’s undisputed junior welterweight title main event on DAZN worldwide,
@MatchroomBoxing @TerriHarper96 @DAZNBoxing @TomLoeffler1 @WBABoxing pic.twitter.com/6wOLRcCvpg
— Cecilia Brækhus (@1LadyCecilia) May 20, 2023
“Just woke up this morning with the Flu,” Braekhus says above.
“Headache, fever, ear, nose, throat- the whole thing. I felt great yesterday at the weigh in. Just heartbroken…for Terri Harper. Sorry to all my fans. Still want to thank Matchroom and Terri, of course, for giving me this chance to fight her. I hope we can comeback and do this real soon.
Braekhus Massive Resume’
The Dutch Braekhus, 37-2, achieved legendary status, when she formerly held a version of or the undisputed women’s world welterweight championship for over a decade and over 20 straight title defenses before finally losing to American Jessica McCaskill by 10 round decision in August of 2020. That defeat ended the longest consecutive reign of any champion, women’s or men’s boxing, in the sport.
McCaskill validated her win over Braekhus by winning their rematch in March of 2021. Breakhus, who’s 41, has been largely inactive since the second McCaskill loss having only fought one time in the last 26 months. That was a December 6th round decision win over Marissa Portillo.
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The news is obviously a shock for the 26 year old Harper, 13-1-1, who was set to defend her WBA belt for the first time since she defeated Hannah Rankin by decision in September of last year. Harper, from Yorkshire England, previously lost a super featherweight world title fight to American Alicia Baumgartner in November of 2021.
Later Saturday morning in the U.K. Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn confirmed that they are looking to schedule Harper a new opponent for next weekend’s Matchroom show in Manchester, England. That card features the WBA featherweight title rematch with new champion Mauricio Lara defending against prominent Englishman and former champ Leigh Wood in a much hyped rematch. Lara TKO’ed Wood in a large upset back in February.
