MICHAEL FAFERA has said that he's "devastated" by the news of his upcoming fight being cancelled due to the coronavirus.

The York boxer was scheduled to be boxing in his seventh professional contest at the Elland Road Pavilion in Leeds on Friday, April 3.

But, like almost all other sporting events around the country, the Bateson Promotions show was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Fafera came off the floor to beat Raimonds Sniedze in his most recent bout back in November and the light heavyweight was eager to show his improvements from that fight next month.

"Don't get me wrong, I am absolutely gutted that my fight has been called," said the 25-year-old.

"In training, I was just starting to peak as well. The sparring has been going really well in this camp and things were starting to come together nicely.

"I want to lift everybody's spirits from my last fight and I was really up for putting in a good performance.

"But, I suppose that everybody's health and safety comes first. I've got a little one at home and the last thing that I would want is for something to come back to her.

"It is what it is, I suppose.

"I am devastated by it. But, at the same time, I'm kind of glad that we've been let know about the news three weeks beforehand rather than three days before the fight.

"That's one positive from the situation, I suppose."

After a short break in his schedule at the turn of the year, Fafera had been deep in training camp at the point in which his fight was called off.

Fafera had been in sparring with former Team GB amateur Lyndon Arthur and fellow unbeaten prospects Mick Learmonth and Callum Simpson during his preparations.

"I've been fully in training since January, since I got back from my holiday in the Philippines," he added. "Training had been going really well.

"Obviously I was meant to be fighting on the March 6 show, but I had a couple of little injuries so I had to pull off that show and go on the April one instead.

"This was meant to be my first fight of the year.

"I wanted to end the year with my record at 10-0 and, at the minute, it's looking like that's not going to be possible.

"Hopefully this doesn't last for too long and I can be back in the ring again soon."

As things stand, Fafera is continuing to train in the gym, though he insisted that he is prepared for any eventuality should that no longer be the case in the coming days or weeks.=

"I trained twice yesterday and once already today," he said last week.

"So, at the moment I'm still training. I'm going to still keep my fitness up and wait until the phone rings again.

"Obviously the situation is changing all the time.

"But there's still things that I can be doing at home and I've just got to make the best of the situation and do what I can."