Mikey Garcia’s first bout of 2018 is being delayed.

THE RING’s No. 6 pound-for-pound fighter was scheduled to chase a title in a fourth weight class with a February 10 bout against junior welterweight titleholder Sergey Lipinets. However, the Russian suffered a hand injury, promoted Richard Schaefer told ESPN, forcing a postponement of the Showtime Championship Boxing card set to emanate from San Antonio, Texas.

“We need to find out the extent of the injury, but it seems like it’s nothing too serious so I think the fight will probably just be pushed back a few weeks,” Schaefer said. “We have to coordinate with the Alamodome and see what dates are available and I need to talk to Showtime. So that’s what we are working on today.

“The injury is not that serious from what I’ve been told. They think it’s a sprain in the hand, but definitely nothing is broken or anything that would cause the fight to have to be pushed back by an extended period of time.”

The co-feature was set to pit Rances Barthelemy and Kiryl Relikh in a rematch for a vacant 140-pound belt, but that fight was postponed, along with Garcia-Lipinets.

Garcia (37-0, 30 knockouts) won a lightweight title with a highlight-reel knockout of Dejan Zlaticanin in January 2017 and then followed up that performance with a wide-points victory over Adrien Broner.

Garcia has maintained he plans to return to 135-pounds after the Lipinets bout to stage a lightweight unification matchup against Jorge Linares.

Lipinets (13-0, 10 KOs) won the vacant belt with a November decision over Akiro Kondo, but now, the former kickboxing champion was set to step way up in competition.

Mike Coppinger is the Senior Writer for RingTV.com. Follow him on Twitter: @MikeCoppinger