Shannon Courtenay has lost her WBA bantamweight title on the scales after weighing 2.5 pounds over the limit for her defense against Jamie Mitchell in Liverpool.

Courtney weighed 120.5 pounds when she got on the scales. While she had two hours to try and get inside the 118-pound limit, promoter Eddie Hearn confirmed that she would not be doing it. As a result, Courtenay will be immediately stripped of her title which will still be on the line for Mitchell, the 36-year-old from California, if she wins. Courtenay is likely to step up in weight next, though her future will be clearer after Saturday’s fight.

Courtenay had been due to make the first defense of the title she had has won in April by claiming a unanimous decision over Ebanie Bridges in London.

That fight had been controversially made for the vacant WBA title despite the pair being only ranked at No 8 and No 9 in the sanctioning body’s rankings. Bridges had been originally due to face Rachel Ball for the vacant title until she was injured.

It is not the first time that Courtenay has struggled to make weight. Her fight with Ball last year was moved up from super-bantamweight to featherweight, a limit she still failed to weigh inside at the weigh-in.

Since then, she said she had upgraded her training regime to mean she was more focused and didn't cut corners.

The fight is on the undercard of the all-Liverpool clash between Liam Smith and Anthony Fowler at the M&S Bank Arena.

Ron Lewis is a senior writer for BoxingScene. He was Boxing Correspondent for The Times, where he worked from 2001-2019 - covering four Olympic Games and numerous world title fights across the globe. He has written about boxing for a wide variety of publications worldwide since the 1980s.