Heavyweight contender Dominic Breazeale will fight fellow former world title challenger Eric Molina in a title elimination match on Nov. 4 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, promoter Lou DiBella announced on Thursday.
Breazeale-Molina, though not scheduled to be part of the Showtime televised card (9 p.m. ET), will be on the undercard of the fight between heavyweight world titleholder Deontay Wilder and former titlist Bermane Stiverne.
Breazeale was originally scheduled to fight Stiverne on the undercard, but when Luis "King Kong" Ortiz was booted from the fight for coming up positive for two banned diuretics, chlorothiazide and hydrochlorothiazide, in a random urine test conducted by the Voluntary Anti-Doping Association on Sept. 22, Stiverne was tapped to replace Ortiz.
Stiverne (25-2-1, 21 KOs) is Wilder's mandatory challenger and had made a deal to step aside to allow Wilder (38-0, 37 KOs) to first face Ortiz. But once Ortiz was out of the fight, Stiverne, who lost the title to Wilder the first time they fought in 2015, was the obvious choice to replace him.
Breazeale (18-1, 16 KOs), 32, a 2012 U.S. Olympian fighting out of Eastvale, California, challenged Anthony Joshua for his heavyweight world title in June 2016 in London and got knocked out in the seventh round. Breazeale rebounded to knockout Izuagbe Ugonoh in the fifth round on Feb. 25 in a helacious slugfest that is a fight of the year candidate.
Molina (26-4, 19 KOs), 35, of Weslaco, Texas, has had two world title opportunities and got knocked out both times, by Wilder in the ninth round in 2015 and by Joshua in the third round in December. Molina bounced back from the loss to Joshua with a six-round decision win against Jamal Woods, who is now 13-37-7, on Sept. 2.
Three other undercard fights were also announced:
• Junior lightweight and five-division world titleholder Amanda Serrano (33-1-1, 25 KOs), 29, of Brooklyn, will take on Marilyn Hernandez (26-10, 17 KOs), 33, of the Dominican Republic, in an eight-round bout.
• Long Island light heavyweight Seanie Monaghan (28-1-0, 17 KOs), 36, will face Evert Bravo (23-6-1, 17 KOs), 32, of Colombia, in an eight-rounder. Monaghan is seeking to rebound from his first loss, a second-round knockout to rising contender Marcus Browne on July 15.
• Brooklyn featherweight Chris Colbert (6-0, 2 KOs), 21, will face Long Island's Titus Williams (7-0, 2 KOs), 28, in an eight-round match. Because of the change to the main event, DiBella also announced new ticket pricing. Wilder-Ortiz was a highly anticipated fight while the rematch with Stiverne is obviously a downgrade. Previously, tickets were priced between $65 and $1,000 and now they are priced between $55 and $650.
"We've recognized that Deontay's opponent has changed, and we've restructured ticket prices to encourage as many fans as possible to attend," DiBella said.
"Stiverne is thrilled for this second chance and he has nothing to lose. Bermane Stiverne is the only opponent that Deontay hasn't knocked out among his professional opponents. Deontay wants to fix that and Stiverne is looking to throw a wrench into Wilder's dream of heavyweight unification.''
The rest of the card televised remains intact with former welterweight titlist Shawn Porter (27-2-1, 17 KOs), risking his position as the mandatory challenger for unified titlist Keith Thurman, against Adrian Granados (18-5-2, 12 KOs) in a scheduled 10-round fight and Sergey Lipinets (12-0, 10 KOs) and Akihiro Kondo (29-6-1, 16 KOs) fighting for the junior welterweight world title recently vacated by unified world champion Terence Crawford.
