Sergey Lipinets Suffers Hand Injury, Title Fight Against Mikey Garcia Postponed

Mikey Garcia‘s quest to become a world champion in four weight classes is going to be put on hold for a little bit.

According to Yahoo Sports, IBF junior welterweight champion Sergey Lipinets, who was scheduled to defend his title against Garcia in February, suffered a hand injury and so the fight appears to be postponed.

Lance Pugmire also reports that Lipinets’ injury is only a sprain on his hand and not a break, meaning that the fight could only be postponed for “2-3 weeks” according to Richard Schaefer. At the moment, Schaefer intends to keep the fight in San Antonio, where the fight was going to take place.

The fight was scheduled to take place at the Alamodome on February 10, headlining a Showtime Championship Boxing card. The other world title fight that was scheduled to occur on the February 10 card was Rances Barthelemy vs. Kiryl Relikh for the vacant WBA junior welterweight title.

Lipinets won the title last November when he defeated Akihiro Kondo by unanimous decision on the Deontay Wilder vs. Bermane Stiverne 2 undercard. Garcia, the WBC lightweight champion, moved up in weight to challenge for the title in lieu of unifying the WBC and WBA titles against Jorge Linares. Garcia made his junior welterweight debut last year when he headline a Barclays Center card and defeated former world champion Adrien Broner.