IBF orders Richardson Hitchins to face Lindolfo Delgado

History doesn’t repeat, but it often rhymes.

Late last year, IBF super flyweight champion Willibaldo Garcia pulled out of a planned showdown with multi-division titlist Kenshiro Teraji at the eleventh hour. Attempts to reschedule the matchup hit a brick wall when the sanctioning body ordered Garcia to make an overdue title defense against Andrew Moloney, which is currently in the same purse-bid-delay limbo as Dmitry Bivol vs Michael Eifert.

That same situation is now playing out again. Dan Rafael and Jake Donovan report that super lightweight champion Richardson Hitchins, who withdrew from last Saturday’s planned defense against Oscar Duarte after falling ill on fight day, is now on the clock to meet mandatory challenger Lindolfo Delgado. The two have 30 days to come to terms, effectively putting the Duarte matchup on ice.

Delgado (24-0, 16 KO) is coming off two straight narrow victories, one a majority decision over Elvis Rodriguez and the other a contentious split over Gabriel Gollaz Valenzuela that saw the former Olympian hit the deck in the final round. He’s with Top Rank, but Bob and co. have been accommodating of other promoters throughout their search for a broadcast partner, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to put this fight together.

That said, it’s not entirely clear to me why Hitchins (20-0, 8 KO) doesn’t just move up to 147. He’s got the size for it, he’s clearly killing himself to make 140, and the only thing Matchroom could presumably be saving him for is a unification with Dalton Smith.