Steven Luevano who was scheduled to defend his WBO featherweight title against Bernabe Concepcion as the co-main event for the highly anticipated “Battle of the East and West” headlined by Filipino icon Manny Pacquiao versus Britian’s Ricky “The Hitman” Hatton at the MGM Grand, Las Vegas on May 2, had to withdraw from the proposed bout.
Inside sources have revealed to MyBoxingFans that the fight has been canceled due to the fact that Luevano from La Puente, CA failed an eye exam during his mandatory physical exam. Luevano, a 27 year old southpaw who won the title with an 11th round knockout of Britian’s undefeated Nikcy Cook on July 14, 07, was held to a draw in a title defense against Mario Santiago last June. In his last fight, he successfully defended his crown against Australia’s Billy Dib with a fairly comfortable twelve round decision.
Luevano (36-1-1 15KO’s) is known for his speed and his boxing abilities, no word if this will effect his professional career. Stay tuned as more information comes in.
Shoot– I have become a big Steve Luevano fan over the past few years. (thought the Santiago fight was one of the most entertaining better bouts I watched last year and it could have gone either way), and he took simply apart Nicky Cook in hostile territory to win his belt. The Dib fight has been the only clunker of the bunch I’ve seen (Steve dominated that one, it just wasn’t very entertaining). He’s usually never going to look dominant– but he always seems to find a way to do enough to win, even if it means picking himself off the deck. In some ways, he reminds me of another one of my favorites when I was a kid– Danny Little Red Lopez. Plus, I always like to have rooting interests in the sport’s “quiet good guys”— and that photo with his family certainly captures that.
I’m curious as to what exactly does “failing an eye exam” mean? Is 20/20 vision (or some minimum) a requirement for a boxing license? Or are we talking about double vision symptoms or a detached retina or something like that? Here’s hoping that whatever it is, it is only transitory and Steve can get back to his winning ways.
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