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Former world title challenger and British middleweight champ Wayne Elcock is out of his Saturday fight against Darren Barker. Elcock, 35, has come down with the flu.
Elcock (19-4, 9 KO) challenged Arthur Abraham in 2007 for Abraham's IBF middleweight title, losing by fifth round TKO. Since then, he's been inactive. He beat Darren McDermott in 2008, and in March of this year was stopped in three by Matthew Macklin. He hasn't fought since then.
He was coming in on Saturday as the clear underdog to Barker (20-0, 13 KO), who is either in the back end or just outside of the top 10 at 160 pounds worldwide at this point. He's got about three more steps of competition to take, but thus far has looked very good in his pro career.
In Elcock's place will be young Danny Butler (18-2, 3 KO), a 22-year old from Bristol who fought in the middleweight "Prizefighter" tournament about a year ago. Butler got his first loss there in a three-rounder, and his second in his last bout, against the aforementioned McDermott.
Having a loss in his last bout isn't really the issue; the issue is more that that fight took place two weeks ago and went the full 10 rounds. I'm actually a bit surprised that the British Boxing Board of Control gave the green light to Butler fighting again so quickly, and in a fairly high-profile bout at that.
McDermott has also fought Barker, for what it's worth, in May of this year. Barker won by TKO in the fourth.
Bad Left Hook will have live, round-by-round coverage of Barker-Butler tomorrow at 5pm ET.