Team Tinker hit out and Boxxer and BBBofC after fight is pulled

Matthew Tinker won’t fight Dan Azeez live on Sky Sports on Saturday – and his team are not happy about it.

Rumour started circling last night that there was an issue with Tinker’s medical and thus the fight wouldn’t go ahead as scheduled.

However, unaware Tinker tuned up to weigh in, only to find he wouldn’t be permitted to box and a replacement opponent, Reece Cartwright, had already been found.

It’s massively disappointing for a fighter who had flown over from New York to face his old amateur foe and was confident of changing his career with a win live on Sky Sports.

Team Tinker claims there was a ‘discrepancy’ issue with the medical, one which can be sorted with the right paperwork, and suggest there was no willingness from Boxxer’s end to have it sorted on time.

A frustrated Derick Santos anger seemed to be further fueled by the fact they arrived to weigh in to find a replacement getting on the scales.

A statement released by Santos read: “Due to a discrepancy with the British Boxing Board Matthew Tinker’s opportunity to fight the British light heavyweight champion was taken away. Despite our best efforts and complete documentation, we were just informed at the weight in that they were not willing to address the situation now but could do so in the future. Which means what? We made weight and they had a different opponent already there at weigh-in. We will not be fighting at all. A massive waste for our team, and for the promotion. They could have done proper work on Monday like we were supposed to and maybe this would have been avoided. Shame on the way this whole thing was handled by the promoter and the BBB.”

The British Boxing Board of Control will argue they have to take a safety first approach regardless of circumstances.