At the end of a most awaited Saturday night last week, Nate Campbell emerged untouched and victorious. It was not because of Nate’s performance, it was because his scheduled opponent for the night – Joan Guzman – backed out. It still is not clear as to why Guzman chose to back out but here is the chain of events:
Four hours before the scheduled bout, Joan Guzman approached his promoters and said that he was not feeling well enough to fight. This surprised Guzman’s promoters as the fight was already well under way especially after the weigh-in that occurred a day earlier on Friday.
The events that occurred on Friday already made the Nate Campbell and his team suspicious whether Joan will come out and fight for the WBO junior lightweight crown. During the weigh-in, Guzman weighed 138.5 lbs. This was a problem because the weight benchmark was 135 pounds. Guzman was then given a two-hour grace period after which he should return to be re-weighed. However, Guzman never showed up.
Weight was not an issue for Nate Campbell. In his readiness to fight, he stated that he would still fight Joan Guzman no matter what his weight. The most important thing for Campbell that day was to make sure the fight would go on as scheduled.
On the night of the championship bout, Guzman called off the fight. Nate Campbell already was the IBF champion and a unified world lightweight champion before deciding to fight with Joan Guzman. Joan Guzman, on the other hand, vacated his WBO junior lightweight crown just to fight Nate Campbell.