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Gabriel Flores Jr. will have to find another opponent against whom he can take a step up in competition.
BoxingScene.com has learned that Andrew Cancio has suffered a back injury and has withdrawn from their 10-round junior lightweight fight. The 20-year-old Flores (19-0, 6 KOs), a developing 130-pound prospect from Stockton, California, and the 32-year-old Cancio (21-5-2, 16 KOs), a former WBA 130-pound champion from Ventura, California, were supposed to fight February 20 as part of the Miguel Berchelt-Oscar Valdez undercard.
ESPN was set to televise the Flores-Cancio clash as the co-feature of a broadcast that’ll be headlined by Berchelt (38-1, 34 KOs) and Valdez (28-0, 22 KOs) in a 12-round fight for Berchelt’s WBC super featherweight title. Both bouts were officially announced Wednesday.
Flores is expected to remain on the card, in a televised fight against an opponent to be determined.
Cancio’s injury has further delayed his debut since signing a promotional contract with Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc. last January.
His first fight with Top Rank was scheduled for last April 25. Cancio was set to battle Tyler McCreary (16-1-1, 7 KOs) in a 10-rounder on the Naoya Inoue-John Riel Casimero undercard at Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas.
That entire show was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cancio’s Top Rank debut was rescheduled for July 16, but the Nevada State Athletic Commission wouldn’t approve multiple opponents proposed for Cancio to fight that night. Less than two months later, Cancio’s proposed fight against Saul Rodriguez (24-1-1, 18 KOs), which was tentatively set for September 12, fell apart over money.
Cancio, who works a full-time job operating a jackhammer for Southern California Gas Company, has not fought since Nicaragua’s Rene Alvarado (32-9, 21 KOs) upset him to win the WBA “super” 130-pound championship in November 2019. That one-sided bout was stopped after the seventh round.
Nine months earlier, Cancio upset Puerto Rico’s Alberto Machado by fourth-round knockout to win the WBA’s “super” title in the junior lightweight division. Cancio also knocked out Machado (22-2, 18 KOs) in the third round of their rematch in June 2019.
Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.