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Buzz fed up after last minute fight postponement
Friday June 20 2008
By Mike Rawn, Staff Writer
 
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Buzz Grant thought that he had prepared for everything in preparation for Saturday’s six round fight against Guyana’s Rudy Fraser. What the local boxer wasn’t prepared for was another postponement — announced late Wednesday night — of the bout.
Grant (6-3, 4 KOs), the Canadian Boxing Federation super bantamweight champion, was scheduled to fight Guyana’s Rudy Fraser (4-0, 1 KO) in a non-title bout at the Hamilton Convention Centre on Saturday. The postponement of the six-fight card is a result of difficulties in receiving travel visas for a party of boxers traveling from Nairobi, Kenya.
“I’m really upset about this,” Grant said. “Considering I found out through voice mail from my friends, not from Stele [Promotions], not from my coach. I had to go online and read about it. I’m supposed to be the main event fight and nobody bothers to tell me? It’s a joke.”
“We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience caused by this postponement,” Jim Gentle, boxing promoter for Stele Promotions, said in a press release. “The local fighters have trained diligently to perform well in Hamilton and our desire to develop a vibrant series of regular events in this city has been bruised but not broken.”
The card will be postponed until early August, pending a review of available dates by the Ontario Athletics Commission. Grant says that card won’t include him. This setback marks the fourth time Grant’s latest fight has been postponed.
“It’s ridiculous,” Grant said. “I understand that things happen, but shouldn’t [the boxers not having visas] have been dealt with weeks ago? I won’t be fighting on that next card.
“I’ve had to call 200 people [Thursday] who bought tickets to see me fight. They had hotels, limousines booked, all around my fight. I feel responsible. If I was a fan I wouldn’t get a ticket for the next fight.”
According to the Stele Promotions press release, tickets purchased for Saturday’s event will be honoured at the rescheduled date, or they can be returned for refund at point-of-purchase.