More fights are off.
The British Boxing Board of Control canceled all scheduled cards through the end of May because of the coronavirus pandemic, according to talkSPORT.
That includes the May 2 heavyweight fight between Dillian Whyte and Alexander Povetkin, which has tentatively been pushed back to July 4 at Manchester Arena. Katie Taylor was scheduled to defend her lightweight titles against Amanda Serrano on that card.
Also, a lightweight title eliminator between Lee Selby and Geroge Kambosos Jr. scheduled for May 9 in Cardiff, Wales has been pushed back to July 11.
The heavyweight fight between Oleksandr Usyk and Dereck Chisora, which was postponed and rescheduled for May 23 in London, is off again. Eddie Hearn of Matchroom Boxing reportedly is working on a new date.
And Hearn told talkSPORT that the Anthony Joshua-Kubrat Pulev title fight scheduled for June 20 at the new Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is unlikely to happen on that date. He said July 25 is a possibility .
“Every sport is looking at their calendar but nobody knows when [it will resume],” Hearn said. “We all hope we can return to some kind of boxing in June, whether that is behind closed doors at first, whether that is back in small hall shows, and then we hope we can get to the bigger stuff by the end of June, early July. But we are completely guessing.”
As for Joshua-Pulev, Hearn said: “We have looked at alternative dates for everything without knowing anything concrete. We have ongoing conversations with Tottenham to say that if the Premier League extends and does get played in June then we’ll be pushed back.
“We do have a date of July 25 held at Spurs as well, which is more realistic. It is five weeks after June 20. But we haven’t gone on sale with that, we haven’t made an official announcement in terms of seat details and on-sale dates, so we have got less pressure on that. There is more pressure for Anthony to fight twice this year.
“… I know there is a bigger picture going on but everybody in sport, eveybody in business right now, needs to be working on a solution, the outcome, what happens when we get through this because it is going to be a horrifically messy time for all businesses, all sports, everything, when we do come out the other side.
“The world won’t be the same again and, in a lot of cases, we will have to start from scratch.”