Shabaz Masoud's championship bout put on ice

The 24-year-old is the mandatory challenger to Michael Ramabeletsa’s super-bantamweight crown and was due to meet the title holder if he came through his fight on the Ultimate Boxxer card in Altrincham on April 3 – live on BT Sport.

That event has since been cancelled following advice from the government and British Boxing Board of Control and Masoud, who trains at Wellington Boxing Academy, says he is now left high and dry when it comes to his finances.

“With boxing, people don’t realise that if you don’t fight you don’t get paid,” he said. “This is my full-time job so if I don’t fight, I don’t get paid.

“I had a TV spot for this fight as well, so it was a bit of a wound.

“But at the end of the day you can’t really say much because people are losing loved ones.

“The bigger picture is that we need to stop the virus and there was nothing I could do. It was a good opportunity, but with all of this going on I can understand it.

“As fighters, this is our job and we need to fight to make money. We just have to get through it.

“Luckily I have a good family and a support unit behind me with sponsors.

“It will get me by but at this stage of your career you don’t want to be getting by.

“You want to be fighting and earning money to save, especially when you’re young. That’s what we’re doing it for, no-one does it for free.

“If we had a normal job we might get sick pay or be able to work from home, but it doesn’t work like that for us.”

The ‘Maverick’ now has his eyes firmly set on the summer when he hopes to see the boxing calendar back on track and more opportunites to get back in the ring.

“Ramadan is coming up in April, so I’ll carry on training until that takes over,” he added. “Hopefully by the summer the virus is gone and we can get back to boxing.

“When I do get back and the shows restart, every fighter will be trying to get a date so it’ll will be tough then too.”