Rocky Juarez will not fight this Saturday

According to Dan Rafael of espn.com, Featherweight contender Ricky Juarez will not appear on this Saturday’s HBO televised show after his rematch with featherweight champion Chris John fell ill just days beofre their championship rematch and Juarez rejected a suitable replacement.

Golden Boy had come up with a replacement for John in Mario Santiago, a top-10 contender from Puerto Rico who fought to a draw with titleholder Steven Luevano in an all-action fight last summer. When Top Rank, which promotes Santiago, heard that John had withdrawn from the fight, it offered Santiago to Golden Boy, Top Rank president Todd duBoef said. HBO said it would have accepted Santiago as a replacement.

According to Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer, Golden Boy’s matchmakers, Juarez manager Shelly Finkel and trainer Ronnie Shields all accepted Santiago. However, Juarez (28-4-1, 20 KOs) rejected the fight because Santiago is a southpaw and he did not want to make the adjustment on such short notice after training for the right-handed John, Schaefer said.

“Rocky would have been OK fighting anyone but a lefty,” Schaefer said.

“It looks like it will be just Victor Ortiz and Marcos Maidana on HBO. We are going to go with one fight,” Schaefer said. “Rocky won’t fight at all. There was an opponent [Santiago] which Rocky turned down. It’s not so easy to find someone everyone can agree on at the last minute.

“Rocky Juarez-Chris John was a terrific fight and a lot of people were looking forward to the rematch, and Chris John really wanted to fight, but he contracted some sort of blood illness and he couldn’t work through it. It was apparent he couldn’t fight. Are we disappointed? Yes, but the safety of the fighter comes first. HBO has very high standards, so it is not like you can just pick somebody for Rocky to fight. It has to be somebody who is up to the level of an HBO fight, and that is hard to find on a few days’ notice. But the show goes on. We have a terrific undercard still, so it will be a good night of boxing for the live audience.”