Rajon Chance’s New Jersey homecoming fight - scheduled for this weekend - has been postponed and will instead take place across the Hudson River.
Chance, who was scheduled to face Yan Carlos Perez this Saturday in his hometown of East Orange, New Jersey, will instead face the unbeaten Dominican on June 14 at the Westchester County Center, promoter Joe DeGuardia of Star Boxing told BoxingScene.
DeGuardia declined to share further details about why the card was canceled, but said the 10-round fight will likely be contested for the NBA Intercontinental junior featherweight title.
“We always had the card scheduled for June, but we were doing the East Orange show and it didn’t work right so what I just did was I took our show and we added a couple of extra fights to it,” said DeGuardia.
“One of the interesting things is that we have a packed card on June 14; the fans for June 14 end up getting the much more stacked card.”
Chance, 8-1-1 (6 KOs), is looking to rebound from his first defeat, an eight-round split decision loss to Travon Lawson last April, while Perez, 5-0 (3 KOs), fought last month, defeating Yeuri Andujar in the first round on one of DeGuardia’s cards on Long Island.
Asked what a win for the 24-year-old Chance could mean, DeGuardia says it could put him on the path to title contention at 122lbs.
“We’d put him on the fast track. He’s got a lot of experience from the amateurs, and he’s in a division where you move and develop younger than say a heavyweight,” said DeGuardia.
“It’s a big fight, whoever wins this fight is positioned pretty well. It’s a classic fight, boxer versus puncher.”
The main event for the June 14 card hasn’t yet been set, but DeGuardia said it’ll likely be either light heavyweight Richard Rivera, 27-2 (20 KOs), of nearby Hartford, Connecticut, or an "old school matchup” between Irish-American super middleweight Harley Burke, 9-0 (7 KOs), of Yonkers, New York and Louis Maietta, 6-4-2 (2 KOs), of The Bronx.
Both Burke, a union laborer, and Maietta, an FDNY firefighter, are solid ticket sellers, and DeGuardia says the matchup is a throwback to the old fight club days when the most popular boxers in their neighborhoods drew big crowds fighting one another.
“To me there are three fights that would be worthy of that spot but I’m not sure which one we’ll put in the last spot,” said DeGuardia, who adds that, while tickets aren’t yet on sale for the June 14 card, those interested in attending can reach out to info@starboxing.com for ticket info.