The two boxers were due to meet on December 9 in Kemerovo, Russia, after Commey's promoter, Lou DiBella, and Andreev's promoter, Vlad Hrunov, made a deal and avoided a purse bid.

However, Hrunov failed to put into escrow the $55,000 he had contractually agreed to pay DiBella as provision for services for Commey’s participation in the bout by the November 10 deadline they agreed upon.

This led to DiBella terminating the agreement after Hrunov failed to respond to enquiries as to why the money was making the bout difficult to come off.

Confirming the news to the Graphic Sports from his base in the US, the trainer of Commey, Carl Lokko, said his camp was looking forward to seeing IBF announce another opponent as soon as possible.

"This is boxing and all these things are part of it but we hope the IBF would get us good news by announcing a different opponent as soon as possible," Lokko said.

Commey is bent on redeeming his image and realising his dream of becoming a world champion after suffering controversial split decision losses to Robert Easter Jr for the vacant IBF lightweight title and against Denis Shafikov in an eliminator respectively.