The pair had been put forward by the British Boxing Board of Control to negotiate a deal to fight for Kevin Satchell’s old Lonsdale Belt until Sanigar was sent documentation that no longer featured Edwards.
“The Championship circular came out as it does every month and Charlie Edwards’ name wasn’t there,” Sanigar explained to World Boxing News in an interview on Thursday.
“I rang Robert Smith and he said they had received notification that Edwards wanted to pull out of the British title fight with Andrew Selby. We are disappointed as it’s a fight we wanted to do. We want Andrew Selby to box for the British title and if it was Charlie Edwards it was a great fight.”
Sanigar had an inkling that Edwards may be out of the running when the Surrey man fought and won a fringe version of the WBC title against Luke Wilton last month and is now plotting Selby’s next move. Selby fights Brett Fidoe in Newport tomorrow night as the amateur star aims for a fourth pro victory and Sanigar will concentrate on that fight first before any possible alternatives to Edwards.
“I understand why there would be reasoning to let it marinade and brew between the two to build, but my thoughts were let’s just crack on and get it done now while it’s there for the prestigious British title. To be fair, if someone had lost it wouldn’t be the end.
“I thought Edwards may be going down a different route when his fight was announced for a WBC belt, but maybe that fight can happen in the future. Andrew fights Brett Fideo, a fighter who has never been stopped so we will plough on with that and see where we go afterwards.
“We want these big fights, you know. We don’t want to be messing around for a year or eighteen months. We just want the big fights and that was a big fight, a big domestic fight that we would have happily done on a Matchroom card if it would have had to have been, but obviously Eddie Hearn, MGM and Edwards’ team decided that they didn’t fancy boxing Andrew Selby.”
Sanigar is known to want to fast-track Selby following the 27 year-old’s pro debut in October but is hopeful somebody is pushed forward for a UK title challenge.
“We don’t want Andrew to miss out on the British because nobody will fight him,” he added.
