Veteran trainer Marc Ramsay saw several of his fighters lose their upcoming dates, due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Both IBF, WBC light heavyweight champion Artur Beteriev and heavyweight contender Oscar Rivas were scheduled to fight on March 28th in Canada, before most of the boxing events around the world were called off in March, April and some of early May.

Beterbiev (15-0, 15 KOs) was making a mandatory defense of his world titles against Fanlong Meng.

The unified champion and his coach were at the gymnasium earlier this week when they received the call from Beterbiev's agent, Philippe Lepage, who gave them the bad news.

"I made a sign to Artur while he was doing pads with Samuel [Décarie]," explained Marc Ramsay to The Montreal Journal.

" He decided to finish his training as planned. It is like Artur and the champion that he is. He is not likely to feel sorry for himself in the most difficult times. It is really a shame because he was in exceptional physical condition and state of mind. "

In terms of cost, however, Beterbiev spent a lot of money on his training camp.

"It's a real disaster," added Ramsay.

"In addition to not receiving his purse, Artur will have to absorb all the costs of his training camp. It is a camp which required large expenses in terms of salaries for the six training partners, allowance, air tickets and accommodation. Even for my gymnasium, it will not be easy in the coming weeks. We make our budget on a monthly basis. However, for the time being, safety and health takes precedence.

"Oscar is in Canada with a work permit which is renewable.  If he had been in the United States for a fight, he could not have returned to [Canada] and he would have been sent back to Colombia. For me and Artur, we should have been subjected to quarantine when we returned [from America]. In short, we would have gone backwards. "

In the end, only he, his assistants, Beterbiev and Rivas, remained in the gym.

“Over the next few days, I'm going to be busy closing my last two training camps like finding plane tickets for Artur sparring partners who have to return home. Then, I will advance in my boxing projects which are mainly administrative," Ramsay said.

“We can train outside, but again, it's not optimal. We are still far from that in my opinion. We will make plans when we have specific dates."

Luke Furman covers boxing for bokser.org