Democracy Day knocks out Ali's fight
Commitment by broadcast rights owners to beaming, live, Saturday's commemoration of Democracy Day in Nigeria, means Bash Ali's World Boxing Federation Cruiserweight tiltle defence against Tony Booth of Britain has to suffer yet another postponment,nigeriasports.com exclusively reports.
The bout was to have held last April 29 in Lagos.But it had to be called off when the Booth camp refused to honour the bout due to Ali's alleged failure to submit a medical report, certifying he is free of the dreaded AIDS/HIV disease within the mandatory two weeks stipulated by world boxing athorities before any fight could take place Reportedly, Booth agreed that the fight be rescheduled after disagreement over medical had been resolved. The bout was billed for this Saturday inside the new gymnasium at the National Stadium in Lagos.However Daar Communications,owners of African Independent Television which was expected to facilitate live broadcast of the fight to the international audience,asked that the fight be shelved by one week for it to be able to honour a supposed bigger contract with the Nigerian Government. "I have been meeting with the management of Daar Communications on the issue of transmission.What they are saying is that it would be impossible for them to handle both the Democracy Day project and my fight on the same day.One has to wait for the other," Ali told nigeriasports.com Tuesday,via a telephone interview. He said the decision to shift the fight once again was highly regretted by those at Daar Communications,particularly because many AIT subscribers in Britain and America had already paid for it. "I can tell you that nobody is happy that the fight will not be coming up again this weekend.How do you compensate those in other countries who have paid hard currencies to enable them watch the fight,well such is life," reasoned the self acclaimed oldest boxing champion in history. 0
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