Donovan George could face an opponent to be determined on Friday night in the wake of a hand injury suffered by southpaw Adonis Stevenson over the weekend.
Bob Arum said Julio Cesar Chavez could fight Brian Vera next, and eventually, Andre Ward.
George to fight Friday, eyes Stevenson for October
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Super middleweight contender Donovan George will look to fight an opponent to be determined on Friday night with an eye toward an IBF eliminator bout in October opposite Adonis "Superman" Stevenson, George's promoter, Leon Margules, told RingTV.com on Monday. Stevenson (18-1, 15 knockouts), of Montreal, was supposed to face George (22-2-1, 19 KOs) on Friday at Buffalo Run Casino in Miami, Okla., before Stevenson suffered a hand injury while sparring over the weekend. Marguiles said that he is working on securing a replacement opponent for George, while Friday night's junior co-feature middleweight co-feautre between Carlos Molina (19-5-2, 6 KOs) and southpaw Damian Frias (19-4-1, 10 KOs) will likely become the main event. "We're going to fight somebody else on Friday night, hopefully, get through it clean, and then fight Stevenson for the No. 1 position. George was prepared and looking very well," said Margules. "I don't have a list of opponents yet, because we just found out about this yesterday, but I'm working on it. Assuming George gets through the fight successfully, we'll try to fight Stevenson in October probably in Montreal." IBF President Daryl Peoples is on vacation until Tuesday, and IBF Championships Chairman, Lindsay Tucker, told RingTV.com that he would have to discuss George-Stevenson with Peoples before approving it as an eliminator at a later date. "I would want to talk to Daryl before we made a decision on that, and he will be be back tomorrow," said Tucker. "This is something that has not come up before, and something that we haven't had to deal with, so I would want to make sure that we're on the same page." George-Stevenson had originally been slated to take place on Aug. 11 in Montreal on the undercard of a main event featuring Canada's former WBC light heavyweight titleholder Jean Pascal (26-2-1, 16 knockouts) and IBF beltholder Tavoris Cloud (24-0, 19 KOs), the latter of which was postponed until sometime in October when Pascal suffered an injured right hand in sparring. Stevenson is coming off a second-round stoppage of Noe Gonzalez in April on ESPN2, as well as a sure-fire knockout of the year candidate over Jesus Gonzales in February. George, meanwhile, came up short in a hard-fought loss to Edwin Rodriguez on HBO in March.
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