By Terence Dooley

British boxing fans now know how those lovelorn 'My partner dumped me via a text message' types feel. Similarly informal means were utilized to inform the masses, as Channel 5 in the U.K. took to Twitter on Monday afternoon to reveal nonexistent plans to remain in the boxing business in the immediate future.


Confusingly, the network's Tweet has since been deleted, perhaps to give them the chance and scope to end this relationship in a more traditional way by doing something outrageous like releasing an official statement.

Rumours that the terrestrial network were going to pull the plug started to circulate on Friday evening after London's James DeGale announced that his WBC Silver super middleweight title fight with Alexander Brand had been postponed, along with the entire Hennessy Sports-promoted show that was due to take place at Kent's Bluewater venue on March 23.

The news was followed by a deafening silence from Hennessy, which only served to add legs to the rumours as, in general, boxing promoters are quick to fire out press releases when they have good news, but are less inclined to open lines of communication when bad news strikes.  

Hennessy, though, is a serial survivor. His deal with Channel 5 came out of the blue and the veteran promoter has a stable that includes DeGale, Tyson Fury, Kid Galahad and Chris Eubank Jr. Hennessy could easily use these names to entice a new TV network into offering him a deal.

However, he may have to ditch the 'steady as she goes' approach that saw him slowly but surely bring Carl Froch a WBC title shot in his hometown of Nottingham in December 2008, a stirring decision win over Jean Pascal. 

At the time of writing, Channel 5 could neither confirm nor deny rumours that they are working on a new reality TV show called: 'I just Tweeted to say I've dumped you'.

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