Lewis Sylvester "devastated" his fight with Maxi Hughes is off

Maxi Hughes vs Lewis Sylvester cancelled

Maxi Hughes (29-9-2, 6 KOs) has pulled out of the fight with Lewis Sylvester (18-1, 4 KOs), scheduled for this Saturday, May 16, at the Eco-Power Stadium in Doncaster, on the undercard of Dave Allen vs Filip Hrgovic.

Hull's Sylvester sadly stated, "In all honesty, I'm devastated. This was my coming out fight, this was a fight that I needed to win to progress my career and obviously he's pulled out, which is a shame.

"I've said to everyone I've got a lot of respect for Maxi, you've got to give him his respect for what he's done in the game of boxing, and obviously people don't just pull out and there's got to be a genuine reason for him pulling out and I hope it's not a serious one, I hope he's all good. However, it would have been an honour to share the ring with him.

"I believe, myself, I trained that hard in this camp, over the last six months I've just been not out the gym, training hard, just cracking on, and this was my breakout fight and now I'm not fighting on it."

The 28-year-old former English champion questioned, "What do I do now? Do I just sit and dwell on it? That's why I've come down, I don't know if I'm not on the show, I don't know if I'm still on the show; I still want to be on the show, this is what I do, I've sold tickets for the show so, yeah, I'm just devastated. I put a lot of time and effort into it, a lot of money, lost a lot of money, lost out on at least 10 grand, yeah, just little things like that, just really p*sses me off, but it's out of my hands innit."

Sylvester is an IBO Continental lightweight champion that's been on a five-fight winning streak since his British and Commonwealth lightweight title challenge to Sam Noakes failed in the fourth round in February 2024.