Connor Coyle forced to withdraw from WBA world title eliminator against Austin 'Ammo' Williams

The 33-year-old Derry middleweight was just 11 days out from the biggest fight of his professional career at The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas on the undercard of Conor Benn's clash with Peter Dobson to be shown live on Dazn when he got the results of an MRI scan.

The NABA middleweight champion's coach and manager Jim McLoughlin confirmed Coyle has sustained a torn tendon at the right elbow during sparring in the lead up to the fight scheduled for February 3rd.

And once his team received the scan results on Wednesday afternoon from well known Florida-based doctor, Dr John Gross - medical physician for the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team - who ruled he was ‘not fit to fight in his upcoming fight due to this injury’, they contacted the promoters to reluctantly break the bad news.

It's devastating news for the former St Joseph's ABC clubman who was confident he could dispatch of the WBA's No. 2 ranked fighter and get his dream shot at a world title this year. However, he is now due to return home to Ireland on Thursday and he'll be out of action for up to four weeks.

McLoughlin is hoping Eddie Hearn's Matchroom will postpone but he’s already making contingency plans for a potential April return should their request be knocked back.

"I hope they can postpone it for a couple of months but I'm not sure if they will," said McLoughlin. "I haven't heard back from them yet. I've emailed on the medical results but we'll see what they say.

"Connor will fly home tomorrow [Thursday] and rest up and in three or four weeks time he should be completely healed. He will have another MRI in three weeks and we will know more after that."

It's the latest major setback for the 20-0 fighter who previously lost out on his most high profile matchup against former British champion Felix Cash in London in a chief support clash when the card collapsed due to headliner Conor Benn's failed drugs test.

Having seen his fighter reach peak condition during a tough training camp in Florida in recent weeks, McLoughlin was certain his man would have his hand raised against Williams.

"He was told he has a slight tear in the arm," continued McLoughlin. "Connor wanted to fight but the doctor told him that he could probably use his arm for maybe two rounds but it could get swollen and aggravated and it could potentially rip some more. He would be in severe pain and could get seriously hurt. So why, as an undefeated fighter who's in the top six in the world, would you take that risk?

"We truly believed he was going to win that fight and we'd love for him to fight that guy. Every time he gets a shot at something big, something happens which is out of his control.

"We were well prepared for this fight,” added Florida Boxing Hall of Fame coach McLoughlin. “We had the correct sparring partners and had one really good fighter in there who Connor dropped in the second round. He was looking sharp. We don't believe 'Ammo' is as good as Connor and we were expecting to win but you can't fight the No. 2 fighter with one arm."