Postponing local card has far-reaching impact
World title tourney on hold while key fighters seek visas, Biyarslanov’s pro debut delayed
Ahigh-profile boxing card scheduled for Saturday night at the Budweiser Stage has been postponed after several fighters were denied visas to enter Canada.
The event, co-promoted by heavyweight legend Evander Holyfield, was scheduled to feature two semifinal bouts in the WBC welterweight world title tournament, and slated to air live on cable TV in the U.S. But when some main-event fighters couldn’t secure visas, organizers decided to postpone the card and offer refunds on tickets already sold.
No new date or location has been announced for an event that could have furthered Toronto’s emergence as a toptier boxing market.
“We worked tirelessly to resolve the issue down to the last possible minute, and we could have made arrangements to move forward with revised tournament bouts,” said Chris Bentley, COO of Holyfield’s Real Deal Promotions, in a news release issued Wednesday.
“It was very important to us that the four semi-finalists … not lose the opportunity they rightfully earned by winning in the quarter-finals due to issues out of their control.”
Postponing the card means delaying fights with implications both locally and in the broader boxing industry. Rio Olympian and Pan Am Games gold medallist Arthur Biyarslanov was scheduled to appear on the card, kicking off a pro career Canadian fans had anticipated since the junior welterweight left the national team program last November.
The top of Saturday’s card was to have pitted South African Chris Van Heerden against Chicago-based Ghanaian Frederick Lawson in one co-feature, with Americans Brad Solomon and Francisco Santana facing off in the other. Saturday’s winners would later fight for the WBC world title, which is currently vacant. This week’s postponement will affect timetables for fighters and promoters alike.
If it had unfolded as planned, Saturday’s card would have capped 13 months of frantic growth in the local boxing scene.
Last July, Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor targeted Toronto as the second stop in a four-city tour promoting their cross-genre megafight, and spectators filled the 16,000-seat amphitheatre at Budweiser Stage to watch the fighters trade insults. Since then, 23 pro boxing cards have taken place in Ontario, up from 15 over the previous12 months. The bulk of those shows featured local talent, but in May the then-Air Canada Centre hosted a world title bout between Montreal’s Adonis Stevenson and Las Vegas-based Badou Jack. That bout could have landed in either fighter’s hometown, but Jack’s promoters instead elected to bring it to Toronto, where roughly 4,700 fans bought tickets.
Saturday was to have been the first boxing card at Budweiser Stage, and it’s unclear when boxing will return there. Two more boxing cards are scheduled for venues in the GTA next month: Sept. 8 in Mississauga and Sept. 22 in Oshawa.
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