UNCASVILLE, Connecticut – Pedro Marquez felt fine Tuesday afternoon, when he made weight for his fight against Martino Jules.

BoxingScene.com has learned Marquez fell ill Wednesday morning, however, went to a local hospital and was advised to withdraw from their eight-round featherweight fight. The 23-year-old Jules (10-0, 2 KOs), a southpaw from Allentown, Pennsylvania, and the 26-year-old Marquez (12-1, 8 KOs) – a San Juan, Puerto Rico, native who has won 11 straight fights – were supposed to open a “ShoBox: The New Generation” tripleheader Wednesday night from Mohegan Sun Arena.

The show will proceed as a doubleheader.

“In the best interest of Pedro Marquez’s health and safety, his fight against Martino Jules has been postponed,” Paco Damian and Sampson Lewkowicz, Marquez’s co-promoters, said in a joint statement. “Marquez experienced some cognitive issues this morning and we sent him to be examined at a local hospital. Under the advice of doctors, we made the difficult decision to call off his fight. We are saddened for both fighters, as we know how hard they have worked for this tremendous opportunity. We wish Marquez a speedy recovery and look forward to getting both fighters back in the ring soon.”

The telecast, scheduled to start at 9 p.m. EST and 6 p.m. PST, will now begin with an eight-round super featherweight fight that’ll pit Panama’s Jose Nunez (11-0-1, 4 KOs) against Armenia’s Aram Avagyan (10-0-1, 4 KOs). In the 10-round main event, Colombian junior welterweight prospect Yeis Solano (15-0, 10 KOs) is set to meet Mykquan Williams (15-0-1, 7 KOs), of East Hartford, Connecticut.

“What I’m happy about is that we’ve put together a very good card that’s emblematic of what we do on ‘ShoBox,’ what we try to do show in and show out,” Gordon Hall, the executive producer for ‘ShoBox,’ told BoxingScene.com before Marquez was forced to pull out of his fight versus Jules. “It doesn’t always work itself out, but as we start the 20th anniversary year, we were able to put together a card we can all be proud of, for what we do. There’s that saying, you know, ‘Time will tell.’ Well, time has told that ‘ShoBox’ has proven, over time, and has lived up to its purpose and definition, finding prospects, helping them develop over multiple appearances, in most cases, and help turn those prospects into contenders.

“We hope that we’re doing it in this show, when we’re bringing back Yeis Solano, who’s making his second appearance after defeating a 20-1 opponent [Elias Araujo in June 2019]. He’s an exciting fighter. He went 118-12 as an amateur. He’s in a 10-rounder and he’s moving up in weight. He throws a lot of punches and he takes a lot, which make for an entertaining fight. And I give a lot of credit to Lou DiBella, who will tell you he has had more prospects knocked off on ‘ShoBox’ than any other promoter. He has Mykquan Williams. He’s only 22 years old. He was a really solid amateur. Yeis makes for good fights. Williams has some power, I think. It’s a really good, solid matchup.”

The first “ShoBox” card of 2021 initially was scheduled as a four-bout broadcast. Puerto Rico’s Patrick Cora (10-0, 7 KOs) and Uzbekistan’s Hurshidbek Normatov (10-0, 3 KOs) were supposed to meet in the main event, a 10-round junior middleweight match, but Normatov withdrew early this month due to an undisclosed medical issue.

Solano-Williams then was changed from an eight-rounder to a 10-rounder and elevated to the main event. 

Keith Idec is a senior writer/columnist for BoxingScene.com. He can be reached on Twitter @Idecboxing.