By Scott Gilfoid: Joshua Buatsi has suffered a hand injury and has pulled out of his fight with Maxim Vlasov on the Joseph Parker vs. Dereck Chisora II card on December 18th at the AO Arena in Manchester, England, on DAZN.
Thus far, nothing has been said about Buatsi’s medical scans being produced to prove the injury to the doubting boxing fans on social media. Like with the Dillian Whyte shoulder injury, the scans haven’t been shown to the public. It would be nice to see them.
Buatsi (15-0, 13 KOs) vs. Vlasov (45-4, 26 KOs) had been pegged as the chief support for the Parker-Chisora 2 rematch and by far the best fight on the entire card, including the main event.
Parker vs. Chisora II card looking barren
With Buatsi, 28, now off the card, it leaves a massive hole that will be difficult to fill if Matchroom Boxing promoter Eddie Hearn even attempts to. The current skeletal Parker-Chisora 2 undercard is below:
- Carlos Gongora vs. Lerrone Richards
- Zelfa Barrett vs. Bruno Tarimo
- Lee McGregor vs. Narek Abgaryan
- Jack Cullen vs. Emre Cukur
That’s a pretty barren undercard if you ask me. I hate to say it, but now’s a good time for Hearn to add the Dave Allen vs. Alen Babic fight to the December 18th card. I doubt Hearn will, as he’s probably saving the Allen-Babic fight to headline one of his DAZN shows.
Is it just a coincidence that Buatsi would suffer an injury when on the verge of fighting his first live body opponent? Many boxing fans felt that Buatsi vs. Vlasov was a 50-50 pick ’em fight, and it does look mighty strange that JB would come down with an injury before this risky affair.
“Due to a hand injury sustained to @boxingbuatsi in training camp, #BuatsiVlasov is off the #ParkerChisora2 card. We wish JB well on his road to recovery 👊,” said Matchroom Boxing on Twitter.
Will Buatsi reschedule with Vlasov?
The bad news about Buatsi’s injury is that it not only deflates the Parker vs. Chisora II undercard, but it also makes it likely that JB will need a tune-up when he does return to the ring in 2022.
So instead of Buatsi vs. Vlasov being rescheduled, we will probably see JB take a warm-up fight to get the cobwebs off when he returns to the ring next year. It’s kind of predictable at this point, isn’t it?
We saw with Dillian Whyte that he had no interest in rescheduling a fight with Otto Wallin after his recent shoulder injury. Will we see the same thing with Buatsi opting not to reschedule with Vlasov?
Buatsi looked very beatable in his last fight against Ricards Bolotnicks last August in the wealthy upscale Brentwood neighborhood at the Matchroom Fight in the UK. That was a WBA 175-lb title eliminator.
Before that fight, which was a mismatch, Buatisi defeated Daniel Blenda Dos Santos by a fourth round knockout last May.
The 35-year-old Vlasov is coming off a highly competitive 12 round majority decision loss at the hands of Joe Smith last April in a fight for the vacant WBO light heavyweight title.
Vlasov gave the hard-hitting Smith Jr all he could handle in that fight, and some felt he deserved the win. That version of Vlasov would have had an excellent chance of defeating Buatsi, which is why it’s a big letdown that JB has pulled out of the fight.
Fans were finally going to get a chance to see Buatsi face his first live body in his four-year professional career, but now it’s off due to his injury. Hopefully, Buatsi didn’t get cold feet and pull out because he lost his nerve after realizing what he was up against in facing the talented Vlasov.