Frampton bid for history held up by hand injury

Carl Frampton’s bid to become the first Northern Ireland boxer to hold world titles in three weight divisions has been delayed after he suffered a hand injury in training for his World Boxing Organisation super-featherweight title fight against the champion, Jamel Herring.

Herring was due to fly to the UK from his training camp in Colorado Springs tomorrow for the scheduled bout a week on Saturday at the Copper Box Arena in Stratford, east London, but the first high-profile world title fight in the UK since boxing returned after the latest lockdown will be rescheduled by a month.

Promoter Frank Warren said: “Unfortunately, the contest will have to be rescheduled. We are expecting it to be on March 27 now.”

The meeting between the “Fighting Marine” – Herring completed two tours of Iraq with the US Marines – and former two-weight world champion Frampton appears to be jinxed. It has previously been delayed by the pandemic and the American suffering a cut in a title defence against Jonathan Oquendo.

Former Russian Athletics Federation president Dmitry Shlyakhtin and four other officials have been banned for serious breaches of antidoping rules. The sanctions relate to the submission of forged documents and false explanations to the AIU and their conduct during a 15-month investigation into a “whereabouts” case against Russian high jumper Danil Lysenko.