Plug pulled on Electric Storm

But instead a severe dampener was put on proceedings with the news filtering through that the show has been postponed until further notice due to behind-the-scenes technicalities which Real Steel Promotions are loth to discuss in the public domain at this point.

“We will be meeting with all the stakeholders on Monday to try and work a way out to fix this.

“We will be issuing a release, but at the end of the day the tournament is postponed until further notice,” an empathetic Andre Thysse added before admitting that the fights could proceed some time after the World Cup, which begins in Brazil next week, as they wait for a gap in the broadcast schedule.

The bill was meant to feature the hyped local match-up between Daniel Bruwer and Kevin Lerena, while local fighters Malcolm Klassen, Danie Venter, Thabiso Mchunu and Jasper Seroka were all meant to appear on the undercard.

One area of concern surrounding this debacle is that regulation 11(4) of the Boxing Act of 2011 appears to have been flouted with the purse money not paid in by the required date of 30 days prior to the date of the tournament.

The Boxing South Africa (BSA) website states that from November 1 last year there would be no flexibility regarding this rule, but it appears that the regulatory body weren’t so strict this time around, an issue that acting BSA CEO Loyiso Mtya insisted yesterday was necessary to keep the sport afloat.

“From early May we had the necessary correspondence and there were guarantees in place. We had no reason to doubt. We do not want to disable boxing in this country. We want boxing to happen,” he said.

Mtya issued an assurance that the boxers meant to feature on this bill would be paid a 10% cancellation fee, which has already been deposited, according to him, by early next week.