By Tim Royner: In a move that many saw coming, Matchroom Boxing has decided to postpone the April 17 card headlined by former light-welterweight champions Regis Prograis and Maurice Hooker due to the coronavirus outbreak. Prograis vs. Hooker had been scheduled to take place at the MGM National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland.
Matchroom will now be looking to stage the Prograis-Hooker card potentially on a different date and site. Refunds are available to boxing fans that had purchased tickets for the April 17 card.
Prograis vs. Hooker may need to be scheduled in May
The best bet could be for Matchroom to stage the Prograis vs. Hooker fight in the middle of May or after. The Center for Disease Control is recommending that shows involving crowds of 50 or more spectators be canceled or postponed for the next 8 weeks. After that period, the CDC will make a decision on whether events involving mass gatherings should take place in the United States.
Matchroom boss Eddie Hearn can always take the Hooker (27-1-3, 18 KOs) fight to the UK in April if he doesn’t want to wait until the CDC gives the green light to the large events to go ahead. Hearn could also stage the Prograis-Hooker fight behind closed doors in a stadium or a small hall, and limit the crowd to just fighter’s teams and the TV crew. Even doing that, it’s possible that more than 50 people will be in attendance.
One positive that the Hooker vs. Prograis card has is it’s not a big card, and that makes it a better fit to place behind closed doors. The MGM National Harbor is a small venue with a seating capacity of 3,000. It might not have sold out, so it would be an ideal fight card to place behind closed doors in a studio.
Prograis vs. Hooker undercard
- Daniyar Yeleussinov vs. Julius Indongo
- Cecilia Brækhus vs. Jessica McCaskill
- Luke Campbell vs. Javier Fortuna
- Filip Hrgovic vs. Jerry Forrest
- Nikita Ababiy vs. Brandon Maddox
- Raymond Ford vs. TBA
- Marc Castro vs. TBA
Whether Hearn feels this card is too big to stage behind closed doors is unknown. He may feel that this is a gate dependent card, which means that he may need to hold off on rescheduling. Hearn could also reduce the number of fights on the undercard so that he can stage the card in a TV studio. The problem with that is that he would still need to find other cards to place these fighters. He would be kicking the problem down the road.
