Due to the postponement of Liam Smith’s rematch with Chris Eubank Jr., Savannah Marshall’s uncontested world championship challenge will take centre stage at Manchester’s AO Arena on July 1.
Smith, 34, has withdrawn to “recover from a small but bothersome injury.” Due to this, the rematch was previously postponed from June 17 after he defeated Eubank in January.
Smith’s fight with 33-year-old Eubank “will be announced briefly,” according to his promoters.
Smith added, “I tried training through it because I didn’t want to let anyone down, but after the most recent medical evaluation, my team has said I should rest. I’ll recover now, and later this year, a fully-fit Liam Smith will return to defeat Chris a second time.”
Ben Shalom, his promoter, said that “Nobody is more disappointed than Liam Smith. We expect to announce the new fight scheduled date in about a week.”
The fact that Savannah Marshall will have headlined cards in the two largest venues in the UK after her fight with Shields, which took place at London’s O2 Arena, shows the power of women’s sport today.
The program will also include Manchester’s Mark Heffron defending his British super-middleweight title against Zak Chelli and Liverpool’s Natasha Jonas defending her unified global light-middleweight belt.
Light-heavyweight Ben Whittaker and Callum Simpson will also be making appearances.
