Vijender Singh will have to wait for third title as Lee Markham opts out due to injury

Indian boxing superstar - Vijender Singh created history at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in China when he beat Carlos Góngora of Ecuador 9–4 in the quarterfinals which earned him a bronze medal in the middleweight category. This was the first ever Olympic medal that was awarded to an Indian boxer at the games.

Singh has since then drifted into professional boxing and penned a multi-year agreement with Queensberry Promotions through IOS Sports and Entertainment. He already had two titles having claimed the WBO Asia Pacific and Oriental Super Middleweight title.

But now the Indian boxer will have to wait for a substantial time period before he could lay his hands on a third title after English boxer Lee Markham backed out of the duo’s pre-scheduled bout on July 13 due to an injury.

“We are in talks with some of the boxers. It will take a bit of time before we announce a new name,” an official from Vijender’s promoter, IOS Boxing, told Sportstar.

Markham had the experience of 22 fights, 17 of them wins, as compared to Singh’s 10 victorious outings over the course of the latter’s short professional career. 

"A new opponent is being looked for and the revised dates for the revised dates for the fight will be announced soon. Markham's pullout was communicated to us by his promoters but that did not work out," an official from Vijender's India promoters told PTI sources.

The fight would have been Vijender's first in six months since the lad from Haryana successfully defended his twin titles in Jaipur against Ghana’s Ernest Amuzu.