Zolani Tete Injured, Replaced By Stephon Young In WBSS Semifinals Against Nonito Donaire
WBO bantamweight champion Zolani Tete suffered a shoulder injury and has been taken out of his World Boxing Super Series semifinal bout against WBA champion Nonito Donaire.
First reported by Mike Coppinger, Tete is dealing with a shoulder injury and will not be ready in time to fight Donaire on April 27 in the 118-pound tournament semifinals. Hours after the initial report from Coppinger, the tournament made Tete’s withdrawal from the tournament official. Tete suffered the injury on April 22 when he was training and revealed he was diagnosed with tendonitis in his right shoulder.
Donaire will still fight on the card, but his semifinal fight will just be a WBA “Super” bantamweight title defense against Stephon Young. The winner of the fight will advance to the WBSS bantamweight finals against the winner of the other semifinal bout: Naoya Inoue vs. Emmanuel Rodriguez.
Young was originally supposed to fight Daniel Lozano on the undercard of the event, but his next fight will now be for a world title. Young is ranked No. 5 by the WBA and No. 9 by the WBO at 118 pounds. Young, a former NABA titleholder, once challenged for the interim WBA title in 2018, losing a 12-round decision to Reymart Gaballo.
The card will be headlined by a World Boxing Super Series junior welterweight tournament semifinal bout between Regis Prograis and WBA champion Kiryl Relikh. The two tournament fights are going to be streamed on DAZN and take place on a boxing card in Louisiana.
