Because of visa issues for multiple fighters, the semifinals for the Jose Sulaiman World Invitational welterweight tournament was postponed on Wednesday, promoters Real Deal Boxing and Lee Baxter Promotions announced.
The fights were scheduled to take place on Saturday on the Budweiser Stage in Toronto, but have been postponed along with the entire card.
“We were forced to make the very difficult decision late [Tuesday] night to postpone the event due to learning that, despite our best efforts, several of the tournament’s international fighters would not be granted visas to enter Canada,” said Eric Bentley, the chief operating officer of Evander Holyfield’s Real Deal Boxing. “While we worked tirelessly to resolve the issue down to the last possible minute, and we could have made arrangements to move forward with revised tournament bouts, it was very important to us that the four semifinalists not lose the opportunity they rightfully earned by winning in the quarterfinals due to issues out of their control.”
South Africa’s Chris Van Heerden (26-2-1, 12 KOs) is due to face Fredrick Lawson (27-1, 21 KOs), of Ghana, in one of the 10-round semifinals and Brad Solomon (28-2, 9 KOs), of Douglasville, Georgia, is due meet to Francisco “Chia” Santana (27-6-1, 12 KOs), of Santa Barbara, California, in the other.
“We look forward to announcing the date and location of the rescheduled event in the coming weeks, and we sincerely thank the boxing fans of Toronto for their support and their understanding of what was a necessary, but very difficult decision for The Real Deal Boxing and our partners at Lee Baxter Promotions to make especially considering the support the city has shown the event,” Bentley said.
Bentley said ticket refunds are available at the point of purchase.