Golden Boy confirms August 28th DAZN show canceled

It was a formality, but Golden Boy Promotions confirmed it Thursday afternoon, as they will not have their DAZN show for next Friday August 28th.

Oscar De La Hoya’s promotion made the official announcement that after lightweight contender, Jorge Linares, had to pull out of the fight earlier this month due to testing positive for Covid-19 and no suitable opponent could be found for Javier Fortuna:

?JUST ANNOUNCED?

Aug 28 event has been postponed. pic.twitter.com/7JHG1cQ8ts

— Golden Boy (@GoldenBoyBoxing) August 20, 2020

Linares, 47-5, 28 KOS,  had actually been training in Japan and as our Marquis Johns wrote previously, Teiken Promotions Japanese fight card was also being cancelled. This was because one of Linares’ fellow fighters training in the same gym, Reiji Kodama, had been exposed.

The prominent amateur Kodama was scheduled to make his pro debut against Munetaka Kihara on August 13th but that fight bill was postponed.

Meanwhile, Golden Boy had held out hope they would be able to find an opponent to face Fortuna to headline out of the Fantasy Springs Resort in Indio, California, without fan present. That’s where Golden Boy held its first fight card post-Covid-19 last month, when Vergil Ortiz remained unbeaten with his 16th consecutive knockout to start his career in the main event.

At the moment, DAZN doesn’t have another Golden Boy fight card on the books for the short term. This, as the await some resolution on whether Canelo Alvarez will agree to a pay cut and take a fight later this year likely in the Super Middlewight division?

DAZN had hoped to have Alvarez fight on September 12th, which is Mexican Independence weekend, in Las Vegas, as it would represent 10s of thousands of new September monthly subscribers to their service.

However, two sources confirmed to us last week that the proposed fight would not have fans present and one TV industry source familiar with the contentious Canelo-Golden Boy-DAZN triangle of negotiation said Alvarez would “let other huge name fighters go first” in taking a massive pay cut to fight without a crowd.