The Ring’s stacked “High Stakes” boxing event — which is live TONIGHT (Sat., Feb. 21, 2026) from inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada — has suffered a major blow after losing its co-headlining title fight.
Per a report, IBF Super Lightweight champion, Richardson Hitchins, came down with food positioning hours before his scheduled fight against Oscar Duarte, which ultimately forced officials to cancel the bout.
Upon hearing the news of the cancellation, Oscar de la Hoya — who represents Duarte — hopped on social media to question the validity of Hitchins illness, saying it seems to him that nerves got the best of the champion rather than some bad food.
“I’ve literally never heard of a fighter hours before a fight come down with food poisoning. I don’t know but something is fishy here,” he said. “They are called nerves. You fight through it. You did the weigh in last night, you did the weigh in this morning, but all of a sudden a few hours before the fight you have food poisoning? Something is fishy to me,” he added before saying he will be talking to IBF officials about re-booking of the fight as soon as possible.
One can understand “The Golden Boy’s” frustration seeing as how this was Duarte’s long-awaited first shot at winning a major world title. As for Hitchins, he was looking to defend his title for the second time after defeating George Kambosos Jr. in his first defense.
As a result of the cancellation, the “prelim” fight between Amari Jones and Luis Arias has been bumped up to the PPV portion of the event.
