Henry Wharton was going to the top today in a bid to finalise his ring comeback.

WAITING GAME: York boxer Henry Wharton, main picture, is to have talks with promoter Panos Eliades, inset, over his comeback to the ring

Wharton and his trainer, Gary Atkin, are heading to London for talks with top boxing manager Frank Maloney.

But also at the meeting will be multi-millionaire businessman Panos Eliades, promoter of world heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, and one of boxing's most influential figures.

Maloney and Eliades jointly were this week awarded the Al Buck Award for manager of the year by the Boxing Writers Association of America for their work alongside Lewis in 1999.

Speaking to the Evening Press today, Eliades was remaining tight-lipped as to his plans for the three-times world title challenger.

"We are going to sit down and have talks but I cannot speculate on the future until we have those talks," he said.

Wharton, the former British, Commonwealth and European super-middleweight champion, announced his retirement just over a year ago on the eve of a triple title clash with Leeds' light-heavyweight king Crawford Ashley.

Now it seems the York ace has some unfinished business and has Ashley in his sights again, should he finally agree to don the gloves.

As reported in the Evening Press, Wharton, who is back in light training, has also been linked with an all-York clash with highly-rated light heavyweight Jamie Warters.

But he is said to be angry over suggestions he ducked the fight with Ashley, who went on to lose his titles to current champion Clinton Woods of Sheffield.

Meanwhile Scarborough's IBF World Champion Paul Ingle is still waiting for to see who his next opponent will be.

Vuyani Bungu, the former undefeated IBF World Super Bantamweight champion, was to be the mandatory challenger for Ingle's featherweight belt but the South African was expected to be named today as Prince Naseem Hamed's next opponent as the Sheffield boxer defends his WBO featherweight title.

Ingle could now be lined up to face Junior Jones, who had originally been pencilled in to face Hamed on March 11, or current European and former world champion Steve Robinson.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.