ATLANTIC CITY – It was quite ironic that Eimantas Stanionis was in this southern New Jersey casino town when he learned Tuesday that another unbeaten Golden Boy Promotions fighter was hospitalized and removed from an important fight.

Jaron Ennis, Stanionis’ opponent April 12 at Boardwalk Hall, learned the day of the final press conference for his last fight in Atlantic City that Vergil Ortiz was hospitalized again and withdrew from his WBA welterweight title fight against Stanionis in July 2023. Ennis knocked out Venezuelan veteran Roiman Villa two nights later inside Adrian Phillips Ballroom at Boardwalk Hall in what turned out to be his last fight with late promoter Cameron Dunkin, who died in January 2024, and Showtime, which exited the boxing business at the end of 2023 following a 37-year run in the sport.

Shakur Stevenson is more fortunate than Stanionis was 18 months ago.

Turki Alalshikh, head of Riyadh Season and chairman of Saudi Arabia’s General Entertainment Authority, and his promotional partners quickly secured a very late replacement for Floyd Schofield on Wednesday. The British Boxing Board of Control, the regulatory agency overseeing “The Last Crescendo” pay-per-view card, wouldn’t allow Schofield (18-0, 12 KOs) to fight for Stevenson’s WBC lightweight title on the Artur Beterbiev-Dmitriy Bivol undercard because he was hospitalized Tuesday in Riyadh.

Schofield’s medical condition hasn’t been explained in detail, but he emphasized on X on Wednesday that he did not withdraw from his fight with Stevenson (22-0, 10 KOs). The left-handed Stevenson, a three-weight world champion from Newark, New Jersey, will instead defend his WBC belt against England’s Josh Padley (15-0, 4 KOs).

Stanionis nevertheless knows all too well how disruptive Schofield’s predicament could’ve been to Stevenson’s career. Lithuania’s Staninois – like Stevenson, a 2016 Olympian – felt as if he were punished once Ortiz officially pulled out of their 12-round, 147-pound championship match scheduled for July 8, 2023.

“It was hard, you know, but I understand,” Stanionis told The Ring. “Health issues in an individual sport, something happens. It was tough because time doesn’t wait for anybody. Time flies, and as an athlete it’s very hard because you sacrifice one year, one year, we are waiting. I understand because injuries happen, health issues.”

The 30-year-old Stanionis still doesn’t understand why he was forced to rebook his own flight from San Antonio, where he was supposed to oppose Ortiz at AT&T Center on a card promoted by De La Hoya’s company, to Los Angeles. Stanionis permanently resides in Lithuania with his wife, Emily, who is pregnant with their first child, but he lives in the Los Angeles area when in camp at Freddie Roach’s Wild Card Boxing Club in Hollywood.

“It’s crazy,” Stanionis said. “We landed and we knew something was off because we were supposed to do a press conference, face to face and everything, you know? And they said to me, ‘He needs time to make weight.’ But I was just thinking he needs time to make weight, you know? Then I woke up [Thursday] morning, got an espresso shot, and we went for a walk with my wife, you know, and my friend. And my previous manager [Shelly Finkel], he called me and said the fight was off, and that’s it. And then he left me in Texas with my wife and my friend. [My friend] flew in, so I had to change the flight. It was like a mess. It was a bad time.”

His welterweight title unification fight with Ennis will be just Stanionis’ second fight since another of Ortiz’s bouts with rhabdomyolysis – a complex, rare muscle condition – forced an abrupt cancelation of their fight. Ortiz (22-0, 21 KOs), who will battle Uzbekistan’s Israel Madrimov (10-1-1, 7 KOs) in a 12-round fight for Ortiz’s WBC interim super welterweight title on the Beterbiev-Bivol undercard Saturday night, was hospitalized the night before their final press conference due to severe dehydration and heat exhaustion.

Stanionis (15-0, 9 KOs, 1 NC) was supposed to make a career-high $1.75 million purse based on the champion’s split from Golden Boy’s winning WBA bid. He didn’t receive a penny for a fight that was canceled on two days’ notice and earned substantially less than $1.75 million for his 12-round, unanimous-decision victory over Venezuela’s Gabriel Maestre (6-1-1, 5 KOs) last May 4 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Stanionis will end an 11-month layoff when he faces Philadelphia’s Ennis (33-0, 29 KOs, 1 NC) in a main event DAZN will stream worldwide. Ennis, No. 1 in The Ring’s welterweight rankings, and the second-ranked Stanionis will fight for the vacant Ring, Ennis’ IBF and Stanionis’ WBA belts.

Ennis’ willingness to fight Stanionis has given the unbeaten champion renewed hope that his boxing career can be as financially rewarding as he once believed. The hard times he and his wife endured remind Stanionis just how fortunate he is to have an opportunity to pursue becoming boxing’s second fully unified welterweight champion of the four-belt era.

“I let it go, but I wanted to fight ASAP, you know?,” Stanionis said of what transpired after the Ortiz ordeal. “So, I [had] before my other team, you know, and I didn’t get any fights, nobody paid for my training camp. I spent all my money. I got sponsors for that fight and I hadn’t fought. And I promised them for the next fight they will be my sponsors, but that money was for training camp, you know. So, yeah, it was pretty tough.”