A double withdrawal thanks to missed-weight cuts occurred in Atlanta Friday when Ghana’s Emmanuel Tagoe was more than nine pounds heavy for his co-main event versus unbeaten 140lbs contender Ernesto “Tito” Mercado and former title challenger Danielle Perkins also was scratched.
Perkins, 6-1 (3 KOs), missed weight for her planned light-heavyweight bout against Olivia Curry, 7-3-2 (2 KOs). Perkins lost to Claressa Shields by unanimous decision for the undisputed heavyweight title last year.
Shields, 18-0 (3 KOs), headlines Saturday’s DAZN card at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, meeting Kaye Scott for the WBC middleweight title.
Mercado, 19-0 (18 KOs), of Pomona, California, was to make his debut for promoter Dmitriy Salita Saturday, and the promoter is actively seeking a replacement fighter for Tagoe, a Ghana fighter who met current WBC welterweight Ryan Garcia in 2022.
Georgia commission officials would’ve let Tagoe fight if he could’ve got within seven pounds, but after a two-hour period following his first weigh-in, he was still 9.2 pounds over.
