Ringtv.com

It’s not quite the announcement that some may have expected after Floyd Mayweather Jr. lavished praise on Shakur Stevenson in Rio during the Olympic Games but it’s a noteworthy signing nonetheless.

Mayweather Promotions announced the signing of Richardson Hitchins, a highly regarded amateur from Brooklyn, New York who represented his parents’ home country of Haiti in the Games last summer. Hitchins is expected to make his pro debut on the undercard of Keith Thurman’s welterweight unification bout with Danny Garcia on March 4 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.

“Mayweather Promotions is pleased to announce another addition to our growing stable of exciting fighters,” CEO Leonard Ellerbe said in a prepared statement. “We have proven we are here to stay, and we plan on giving the fans more exciting fights. Hitchins is a star in the making and we are in a position to get him to world champion status.”

Hitchins, 19, qualified for the Olympic Games last summer after receiving a helping hand from former titleholder Andre Berto, whose parents are of Haitian descent and who flew him to Azerbaijan last June for an Olympic qualifier. It was a last-ditch effort to make the Games after Hitchins was eliminated in the U.S. Olympic Trials.

Hitchins reached the semifinals to qualify for Rio but ran into USA’s Gary Antuanne Russell in his opening light welterweight bout and dropped a unanimous decision. Still, he showed the skills — he has fast hands and is a skilled counter-puncher — that have made him a much-discussed and perhaps under-the-radar prospect. “I am a product of my environment, it’s built me to where I am today and it’s no mistake I’m this good,” Hitchins said in a press release. “I’m just happy to work with a team who is in a place to help me achieve my goals as a fighter.”