Sugar Shane Mosley (47-8-1, 39 KOs) was forced to back out of his showdown with Anthony Mundine (44-5-2, 26 KOs) for the vacant WBA international light middleweight title that was supposed to take place on Wednesday at the Entertainment Centre in Sydney, Australia.
According to Dan Rafael of ESPN, Mosley and his camp called the scheduled 12-round-bout off after Millennium Events Promotions, led by Vlad Warton, reportedly breached the contract.
"I'm very disappointed with this turn of events because I was planning on making a big statement by beating Mundine, but I was left with no choice but to withdraw," Mosley said. "The fans in Australia have welcomed me with open arms, and I hope to return to fight for them one day in better circumstances."
Golden Boy Promotions chief executive Richard Schaefer revealed that Mosley was due to receive $1 million as a fight purse. The promoters already settled the $300,000 in advance with the promise of giving the remaining portion of the purse before the fight, but the promise that was in the fight contract was not fulfilled by the promoters.
"It's unfortunate for Shane, obviously, because he traveled halfway around the world and was excited about the fight," said a disappointed Schaefer. "His training camp went very well, and he was well prepared to go and win the fight. I am sure Anthony Mundine did the same. I feel bad for both athletes and the fans who had made arrangements to see the fight."
In an interview with Boxingscene, Mundine, who is looking to bounce back from a unanimous decision loss to Daniel Geale in January, also expressed disappointment with the sudden cancellation of the bout.
The 38-year-old New South Wales native is hoping that the fight will be resurrected, saying that his manager Khoder Nasser will have a meeting with Golden Boy Promotions about the possibility of staging the fight in December.
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