Top Rank has cancelled the boxing cards on Saturday and Tuesday nights at the Hulu Theater at Madison Square Garden due to a lack of access to coronavirus tests.

“We were going to be guided by the recommendation of the athlete commission,” said Top Rank chairman Bob Arum. “And they consulted their medical people and were advised not to go through with these events because there is no way to adequately test the fighters. It’s as simple as that. It’s a failure to provide the proper testing for this virus in-country. If we could test the fighters and one or two tested positive then we would eliminate their fights, same with the referee. But without testing we are operating in the dark.”

While Shakur Stevenson was looking forward to returning to the Newark-NYC area for his first title defense, the cancellation is not changing his goals to become the #1 ranked pound-for-pound boxer in the world in the next few years.

Shakur talks about his lofty goals:

“I want to be a superstar in the sport, and to be a superstar you have to put on superstar performances, so I plan on this being a superstar performance and putting on a hell of a show for the fans,” Stevenson said before the fight with Marriaga (29-3, 25 KOs), 33, of Colombia, was canceled.