YESTERDAY'S sensational 11th-hour postponement of 'High Noon in Hong Kong' leaves the eight fighters on the four-fight card high and dry, unsure of their next moves and, in most cases, personally out of pocket.
As the dust settled at the Regal Hotel Ballroom the boxers, who thought they were turning up for a pre-fight weigh-in, transformed from being fighting fit to fighting mad.
Steve Collins, the defending WBO middleweight champion whose bout with Lonny Beasley should have got proceedings underway at 10 am this morning, said in the aftermath of the announcement: 'I'm putting on a brave face but I'm devastated. I've never trained as hard as this. It's been a long while since I fought so I trained especially hard for my first title defence.
'I have been seven weeks away from home, from my wife and kids. I couldn't believe it. I was looking forward to getting off the scales and getting some fluids into me.
'What really hurt me was that all the screaming and shouting came from people like the promoters and managers.
'But there were eight boxers sitting there. We're the real losers here. We've lost more than the promoters.
