Like everyone else involved in the sport of boxing, promoter Eddie Hearn is having to cope with the ongoing coronavirus issue. Things are getting worse, not better, and though there are of course far more serious issues than a sport to consider, Hearn is doing his best to keep going. With that said, the Matchroom boss has issued his backup plans/dates that he may have to use for his three big heavyweight fights set (at the moment) for May and June.
First up, Dillian Whyte and Alexander Povetkin are scheduled (at the moment) to fight on May 2 (the same night Canelo Alvarez was going to fight Billy Joe Saunders out in Las Vegas, this fight now delayed), then Dereck Chisora and Aleksandr Usyk are scheduled (at the moment) to fight on May 23rd, and finally, Anthony Joshua is scheduled (at the moment) to defend his three heavyweight titles against IBF mandatory challenger Kubrat Pulev on June 20.
If the virus sees to it that all three fights are postponed, and it looks very likely this will be the case, Whyte-Povetkin will go ahead in the middle of June, Usyk and Chisora will fight at the end of June or perhaps in early July, while Joshua and Pulev will fight in late July. This is the plan, the hope, anyway.
Hearn has said that any fan who cannot make the new date will be entitled to a full refund of their ticket price.
It’s obviously far from ideal for the fighters themselves, who will have to put their training schedule on hold or make big changes to their camp. How this may or may not affect one or more of the six world-class fighters is unknown. But it’s not all that hard to imagine a loser in one of the upcoming fights to have a perfect excuse for having been beaten; that the whole mix up/delay/change of date, had an adverse effect on them and their mental game and that this is why they lost.
But as Hearn has said himself, the fighters have to be pros at this testing and frustrating time.
