Shawn Porter and Danny Garcia's impending WBC welterweight title fight is likely not taking place in August.
According to Ring Magazine's Mike Coppinger, the fight, which was planned to take place on August 25 but had not been officially announced, will likely have a new date in the fall. Coppinger originally tweeted the fight could take place as late as November, but then added that a more likely date would be September 8 and that the fight would be televised on Showtime.
The fight will be for the WBC title that was vacated by Keith Thurman due to not defending the title once since beating Garcia to unify the WBA and WBC titles in 16 months ago. Thurman's absence is due to Thurman recovering from elbow surgery last year and an added injury delaying his scheduled May 2018 return to the ring.
Both Porter and Garcia won title eliminators in 2017 and 2018, respectively, and the WBC ordered the two mandatory challengers to fight for the now-vacant title. The two boxers previously reached a deal, which canceled a purse bid mandated by WBC President Mauricio Sulaiman.
It's unknown why the fight got moved from its original August 25 date if indeed it was moved, but Top Rank has an ESPN-televised card scheduled to take place on that date. Although that card has not been formally announced, it is expected to be headlined by Raymundo Beltran's first WBO lightweight title defense against top-ranked Roman Andreev with Isaac Dogboe's first WBO super bantamweight title defense serving as the co-main event.
