WALTER Gahadza was forced to pull out of the biggest fight of his career after being struck down by an illness on the eve of the bout.

Gahadza had been due to fight for the BAMMA promotion, one of the biggest in Europe, for the very first time against Frenchman Mikael Lebaut at the Victoria Warehouse in Manchester.

But Gahadza, who trains at the TSG base in Westcliff, did not make it in to the cage due to a virus.

And that left the former Belfairs High School pupil devastated, according to his coach Dan Burzotta.

“Unfortunately the winter flu bug didn’t even spare a highly trained athlete like Walter and nobody was more disappointed than us about that,” said Burzotta.

“I decided to pull him of the fight because on the Friday he had a really high tempering and had the shivers.

“I contacted the promoters and he was advised to pull out on medical grounds because each fighter has to have a medical before their fight and there was no way he would’ve past that.

“Walter is gutted about it but we are waiting for the fight to be rescheduled so hopefully he will still get the opportunity to show what he can do.”