Saturday's
fight between Guillermo Rigondeaux and James 'Jazza' Dickens has been
cancelled after the Cuban was unable to secure a UK visa.
The
super-bantamweights were due to fight in Liverpool, but a statement
released by Queensberry Promotions last night confirmed that Rigondeaux,
who had been training in Russia, had failed to obtain the necessary
paperwork and had returned to his base in Miami.
Dickens
had sought answers from Rigondeaux following rumours that their
showdown was in doubt, with the Englishman yesterday tweeting his rival:
'Sorry to call you out like this champ, and with all due respect, are
you coming to Liverpool to fight me? Yes or no?x'
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| Saturday's fight between Guillermo Rigondeaux (right) and James 'Jazza' Dickens has been cancelled |
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| Rigondeaux, had failed to obtain the necessary paperwork and had returned to his base in Miami. |
His answer
soon arrived in the form of a lengthy statement from the English
promotional outfit, which questioned why Rigondeaux had flown to the
United States when he was still apparently in the process of securing a
UK visa via the UK Visa Application Centre in Moscow.
The
statement read: 'Yesterday (Tuesday) and for some unexplained reason,
unbeknown to both QP and Roc Nation Sports, Rigondeaux boarded a flight
to Miami and arrived in the USA on Tuesday afternoon. We have yet to
establish how and why he flew to the USA and further, how he managed to
fly anywhere when the normal practice is, when applying for a visa, that
you hand your passport in and get it back when the visa is issued.
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| Rigondeaux (left) is a two-time Olympic gold medalist but has only fought 16 times in his professional career |
'Strangely,
Rigondeaux left Moscow at a time when both the Application Centre and
Consulate were still closed. He has yet to explain to RNS, who are as
much in the dark as QP, as to how and why he has arrived in the USA and
why he was in possession of his passport which should, as is standard
protocol, have been presented to the Visa Application Centre.
'We
are all extremely disappointed by the whole situation as Rigondeaux
will not appear this Saturday and Dickens will not get the chance, that
he has trained so hard for, to fight the world’s best super-bantamweight
in front of his own fans.'
Rigondeaux
is widely recognised as a top 10 pound-for-pound fighter, having won
his first world title in only his ninth fight. That followed a
glittering amateur career in which he won bantamweight gold medals at
the Sydney and Athens Olympics.
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