Romero tells Cacace he’s cleared to fly and ready to fight

Former world champion Jonathan Romero [35(19)-1(1)] wants Anthony Cacace [19(7)-1] to know he is cleared to fly and ready to fight

The Columbian and the Belfast feather were set to play chief support to the Tyson Fury – Dillian Whyte heavyweight world title fight in Wembley Stadium in April.

It was seen as the perfect platform and ideal dance partner for the British champion to make a significant step toward a much-covetted world title shot.

However, after flying to London to fulfill press obligations and just days shy of gracing Wembley in the agreed ranking title fight it was confirmed the bout was off.

Romero had visa issues, couldn’t get into the UK and a suitable replacement couldn’t be found in time.

The news hit the continually misfortunate ‘Apache’, who has this week lost his WBA Top 15 ranking, so hard that there were suggestions he was considering retirement,.

However, Romero, who once held the IBF super bantamweight world title that eventually decorated the waist of Carl Frampton, is visa approved and keen to fight.

His team reached out to Irish-boxing.com to reveal as much.

“We would love to still have the opportunity to fight Cacace for a title,” manager Mauricio Gonzalez said.

“It is a good fight for both sides, for Cacace he steps up in class, fights a former world champ and Olympian. For Romero it’s the opportunity to be on a world stage and get ranked to get a title shot.

“The backstory of both these individuals is very similar in terms of their boxing careers and they are both in their 30’s they have no time to wait. We finally have a visa in hand and hopefully can get something done soon.”

Explaining what happened back in April, Gonzalez added: “Jonathan was given the opportunity for this fight on three and a half weeks’ notice and he jumped at the chance. He was going to have a very short camp but looked at the opportunity and took the fight on short notice.

“As soon as we were given the paperwork to apply for a visa we did so but given the global climate with the war everything was delayed. Normally they say a visa takes three weeks unless you expedite it – in that case you can get it within days. However, Due to the war the three week process was now taking a minimum of 6 weeks with no possibility of expediting at all.

“We called on a daily basis and Queensbury did all they could also to help in the matter, we even reached out to Colombian political figures to assist but it was all for nothing. Jonathan was gutted.”

Gonzalez also assured Romero was keen to fight and didn’t pull out for any other reason as it was impossible to travel.

“As a team we were chomping at the bit not only for the title and to fight someone of Anthony’s caliber but to fight at Wembley in a co main event supporting Tyson Fury in front of over 90,000 people. When will we get that chance again? Who knows if ever.

“I know in this matter it was not for a lack of trying from our end and for that matter the promoter tried helping but no one was able to expedite the process.”