Visa issues force postponement of WBC’s World Invitational semifinals

Per an announcement from Real Deal Boxing and Lee Baxter Promotions announced, via ESPN, the semifinals for the WBC’s Jose Sulaiman World Invitational welterweight tournament has been officially pushed back for the time being. The semifinals was scheduled to begin this Saturday in Toronto but with a number of fighters unable to get their visas approved the entire card has been postponed.

“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.”

In the tourney Chris Van Heerden (26-2-1, 12 KOs) is slated to take on Fredrick Lawson (27-1, 21 KOs) in a 10-round match while Brad Solomon (28-2, 9 KOs) is to meet Francisco Santana (27-6-1, 12 KOs) in the other semfinals match.

With those fights back on the shelf for the moment, tickets to the event are being refunded at the point of purchase.