A dry month just got drier.
With COVID cases skyrocketing in the United Kingdom and a new, more contagious strain making itself known, the British Boxing Board of Control today suspended all “tournaments” for January 2021. This impacts two noteworthy events: MTK Global’s January 22nd Karim Guerfi-Lee McGregor card and Matchroom’s January 30th David Avanesyan-Josh Kelly card.
MTK, Matchroom, and Eddie Hearn responded:
Seen the statement from the BBBofC that January shows will be postponed in the UK. Boxing for us will now re-start early Feb. Hopefully that will be in the U.K. but we will proceed regardless, safely and by any means necessary. To the fighters out there..stay ready!
— Eddie Hearn (@EddieHearn) January 3, 2021
Both fights had already been postponed previously; Guerfi-McGregor was scheduled for November 11th before the latter withdrew due to COVID, while Avanesyan-Kelly is a thoroughly cursed matchup that originally fell through in 2018.
The only remaining major fights this month take place on the 30th: Sergey Kovalev vs. Bektemir Melikuziev on DAZN and Caleb Plant vs. Caleb Truax on FOX..
The fact of the matter is that the pandemic is far worse than when everything first shut down, and I’d wager that Hearn’s “early February” prediction will prove overly optimistic.