The return of former two-division titleholder Paulie Malignaggi is on hold after he suffered a deep cut in training on Thursday.
Malignaggi was due to fight for the first time in 13 months against Danny O'Connor in a welterweight fight on May 29 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, Malignaggi's hometown. The bout was due to open the Spike TV-televised Premier Boxing Champions card headlined by the welterweight fight between former junior welterweight titleholders Amir Khan (30-3, 19 KOs) and Chris Algieri (20-1, 8 KOs).
"He got cut in a bad place above his eye and needed stitches," promoter Lou DiBella told ESPN.com on Friday. "He got a number of stitches, and he could not fight. He was fine on Wednesday at the open workout and then this happened."
DiBella said that the fight between Costa Rica's Bryan Vasquez (34-1, 18 KOs) and Javier Fortuna (27-0-1, 20 KOs), of the Dominican Republic, who were scheduled to meet for a vacant junior lightweight title on a PBC on NBC undercard card at Agganis Arena in Boston on May 23, will instead be delayed six days and replace Malignaggi-O'Connor as the opening bout on the Spike TV PBC card.
"This is not a bad alternative under the circumstances," DiBella said. "Fortuna and Vasquez should be a very competitive fight."
Malignaggi (33-6, 7 KOs), 34, who won world titles at welterweight and junior welterweight, has not fought since he challenged then-welterweight titleholder Shawn Porter in April 2014 and got dominated in a fourth-round knockout loss. He has remained busy in boxing as a television analyst, however, mainly with Showtime.
DiBella said O'Connor (25-2, 9 KOs), a 30-year-old southpaw from Boston, might move to the May 23 Boston card in an untelevised bout if a suitable opponent can be found on short notice.