David Avanesyan will not be fighting Michael McKinson. Not this side of Christmas anyway.

Hopefully, negotiations can be restarted early next year because it is a fight that make too much sense not to happen. Two welterweights who have found it difficult to tempt big names into the ring suddenly came to the realization that the best route back into world title contention ran through each other. 

Both men were keen on the fight. Last month, former European and WBA world champion, Avanesyan, told BoxingScene.com that he would be happy to face McKinson and the following day McKinson responded, declaring that that he was pleasantly surprised by the news and would be more than happy to take on the feared Russian.

With McKinson being from Portsmouth and Chris Billam-Smith due to defend his WBO cruiserweight title against Mateusz Masternak just 50 miles along the south coast in Bournemouth on December 10th, all of the pieces seemed to have fallen into place. The announcement never came. 

“No, it’s not happening unfortunately," Avanesyan’s trainer, Carl Greaves, told Steve Lillis and John Evans on VIP Boxing’s Bell 2 Bell podcast.

“Neil Marsh [Avanesyan’s manager] has been working hard behind the scenes trying to get the fight on. We were told it was happening and then he gets a message last week to say that McKinson doesn’t want it now until the summer.

“Very disappointing because we’ve been holding on for that fight and now it’s not happening. We don’t know if David’s going to be out now before Christmas which is a big shame because it’ll be a year then that he’s had inactivity and at 35 years old that’s not good.

“McKinson’s on the bill but he’s not fighting David. I’ve got a little feeling it’s because there’s a world title fight on and it’s only in a three thousand arena and the budget might not be there for this sort of fight.

“It’s a big shame because as far as I’m aware McKinson has always wanted it. He had a great fight with Vergil Ortiz and David had a great fight with Terence Crawford.

“It’s the right fight for them both at this stage. There’s probably nowhere to go for the loser but the winner can build on it and push on for another world title shot.”