Earl stopped again!

Former British and Commonwealth lightweight champion Graham Earl won’t be returning after all - well, not this Saturday where he was the headline attraction on Goodwin Promotions night billed as “The Return of the Champion.”

A hand injury obtained in sparring has put paid to his immediate comeback plan on the debut of promoter Steve Goodwin’s event at the MK Dons Stadium in Milton Keynes.

Earl worked the corner of Jay Morris for his loss to Curtis Woodhouse a week last Sunday and was sporting a bandage round his left hand.  On being questioned, he said it was just bruising and he'd be OK to fight.  BoxRec News Editor Ian McNeilly said at the time, "It doesn't look good to me.  He was hardly moving it and it's only a couple of weeks until fight time.  I don't think he'll make it."

This has proved to be the case.

Talk of Graham's latest return (despite winning on his return to the ring last year) was not met with the greatest of welcomes including the disapproval of his former trainer Johnny Eames.

Earl had previously been stopped in three consecutive fights at the hands of Michael Katsidis, Amir Khan and Henry Castle and now his hand will be in plaster for six weeks stopping him early on again.

On the more positive note Goodwin is expecting a good sized crowd having sold 600 of 900 available tickets.

An upbeat Goodwin said “That’s boxing” and is still looking forward to an action packed night citing middleweight match between Harry Matthews (8-0) and Terry Carruthers (5-3-4) as the one to watch.

This helps form the bill containing six bouts of three six rounders and three four rounders.

First is at 8 pm.