Knockout blow to Elgin boxer Andrew Smart as his Scottish welterweight title fight against Robbie Graham at Elgin Town Hall is called off
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Andrew Smart's Scottish welterweight title fight at Elgin Town Hall has been cancelled.
Smart and fellow former Elgin Amateur Boxing Club fighter Fraser Wilkinson were hoping to land a Moray double by becoming Scottish champions in their home town.
Wilkinson will still go for national glory against Corey McCullough for the vacant Scottish professional super welterweight belt on Saturday.
However, Smart was devastated to learn this week that his own title bid has been put on hold.
His opponent Robbie Graham has been bedridden with a sickness bug for the past week and the plug has been pulled on their ten-round headline bout.
Smart has won all six of his professional fights but believes he has also had six cancelled now for a variety of reasons.
"I don’t really know what to say," he said. "These things happen in boxing and you can't change anything.
"It is almost as if I'm getting used to it now."
Smart won his last fight in September in the semi-finals of a Last Man Standing contest which was then elevated to a Scottish welterweight title decider.
His first cancellation came when he was ready to enter the ring in the opening bout of a boxing show, which was then cancelled when it was discovered there was no ambulance service at the event.
"I was ready to walk on, I was gloved up, warmed up and about to walk to the ring. I was just waiting for my entrance music and the show had to be scrapped that night."
He also has a professional bout cancelled a week before the pandemic outbreak closed sport down, and another when boxing resumed but an opponent tested positive.
In May, work commitments to paid to another bout and when a show at Aberdeen's Beach ballroom was quickly arranged for the following month, that too had to be scrapped at the eleventh hour.
Smart is devastated that he won't be joining his Moray colleague Wilkinson on Saturday's bill.
"I was keen to take the momentum of my last win in September into my Scottish title fight," he said.
"It will still happen but this was going to be a double header with two Elgin guys going for the Scottish title.
"I was going to be headlining the event as well.
"Anything after this is never going to live up to what that could have been on Saturday at Elgin Town Hall.
"That is hard for me to take."
