Brook, 28, was all set to challenge 26 year-old Porter as the mandatory contender with the International Boxing Federation until the American failed to hand in his contract in time for the clash to go ahead as planned.
Instead, GBP sent out an official release stating that Danny Garcia and Lamont Peterson would defend their titles in separate bouts when both were strongly fancied to oppose each other in a unification.
In the third world title fight of the night, Jarrod Fletcher is set to battle Daniel Jacobs for the vacant WBA ‘regular’ middleweight title, adding to what looks to be a hastily re-arranged card for the Brooklyn venue.
Writing in his Daily Mail column, Hearn outlined what transpired leading up to the cut-off point and hopes to have more on the matter by Thursday after dealing with the Ricky Burns press conference in Scotland.
“One June 16, we signed the provision of service agreements and the IBF bout agreement to fight Shawn Porter with a proposed date of August 9 but no later than September 7,” Hearn said.
“The provision of services agreement was sent back fully executed and when I contact the IBF on Monday night they told me Porter had not sent his bout agreement but that they received ours on June 16.
“When we saw Porter say we hadn’t signed, it left me infuriated because we have and we’re ready to go.
“Porter said on Monday night that they would sign on Tuesday so obviously there’s some fun and games going on behind the scenes. The politics are being played out between the various promoters so I don’t know what is going on.
“All I can say is we have a signed agreement for that fight and supposedly Porter will send his bout agreement to the IBF. We now wait on an official date from Golden Boy which we expect in the next 48 hours.”
‘The Special One’ has already waited two years and had a couple of title opportunities fall apart prior to the Porter fight, and the next few days are going to be crucial in Brook’s career as he finally awaits confirmation.
Follow on Twitter @PhilDJay for tweets of upcoming news on WBN
