Promoters will look to reschedule the eagerly-awaited super welterweight fight between Tim Tszyu and Jeff Horn after it became the latest major sporting event to be postponed due to the coronavirus.
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Co-promoter Matt Rose confirmed on Tuesday that the April 22 bout in Townsville will not go ahead.
The news came less than 24 hours after a release from Rose and fellow promoter Dean Loneragan saying the fight at Queensland Bank Country Stadium was to proceed, but warned the situation would be reviewed daily.
"It's a landscape that changes probably hourly and from our perspective looking at how things were going in the current environment of the unknown we just don't know where things are going,'" Rose told AAP.
"Although we're still six weeks away from that fight we just felt it still fell within the grounds of what's going at the moment.
"We've just come to the decision in the current climate of where things are with the coronavirus that it was in the best interests of everyone to postpone, call off a super fight and look to see how we can potentially do it in the future.
"We've got commitments with the Queensland government and we've got a lot of conversations to have with them on how that can potentially work.
"At this stage we'll shut down on what we potentially do for the next two or three weeks, and from there we'll see exactly what we can do."
Former WBO welterweight champion and world ranked Queensland middleweight Horn (20-2-1, 13 KOs) and world ranked NSW super welterweight Tszyu (15-0, 11 KOs) have both been in heavy training for their fight.
"Obviously they are disappointed but understand totally where we're at as a community," Rose said.
"The intensity of their training over the last six weeks has been pretty extreme and at the end of the day it's all about ensuring that we fall into line within the rest of the advice the government has been giving and ensure the safety of everyone."
General admission tickets for the fight went on sale on Monday and corporate hospitality sales started last Wednesday, with Rose saying there had been a strong early buzz for the bout.
"We know that there's a big appetite for this fight, it's just everyone will have to wait until we can get it back on," he said.
Australian Associated Press
