Robert Caswell’s title-fight is off after picking up an injury in the last round of the final sparring session of his training camp.

Caswell, 22, was set to fight Michael Webber-Kane for the vacant Southern Area super featherweight belt at York Hall on Saturday.

That fight has now had to be postponed after the unbeaten Chatham boxer suffered a perforated eardrum, picking up the injury with less than a minute remaining of his 10-round final sparring session.

“I was absolutely gutted,” said the 8-0 boxer. “It had been one of my best training camps so far and everything had gone so well.

“It was the last minute of the last spar!

“Loads of boxers have said they have had the injury before but I have been boxing since the age of 10, I had never had it before, then the time I get one is now, it’s so unlucky!

“I had got Bernard Torres (18-1) to come over from Norway, I had some unbelievable sparring and my fitness was the best it’s been.

“It felt like everything was clicking at the right time, ready for a big fight, then to get this news was gutting.

“To let everyone down as well, people who had bought tickets. We had two sold-out coaches and I had done the most tickets I had ever done.”

Caswell initially hoped the injury was one he could get away with but he was soon ruled out of action, with the hole in his eardrum getting infected, which added to his woes.

“It has been a bit of a nightmare,” he said.

“I wasn’t hit with a big shot, more a cuffing hook but with the headguard on, the pressure shot into my ear and I heard a pop, then loads of ringing. I knew I had done something straight away.

“Everyone gets a bit of a niggle in sparring, you might get hurt in the ribs, something like that, but you think, ‘That’ll be alright’.

“The first day wasn’t too bad, just ringing and deaf in the ear, then at night it started to bleed and discharge and it hasn’t stopped.

“The pain has been unbearable.

“Had it been just a little perforation I might have got away with it, but once the infection and the pain started, it put the fight straight to bed.”

Caswell has already attended hospital with the injury and is due to see a specialist this week, hoping to get a timescale on his recovery, but the title fight now looks to be off until December, assuming the damage isn’t too severe.

Opponent Webber-Kane had an option to fight a journeyman at the weekend but his camp appear willing to wait for Caswell to recover.

The Chatham boxer said: “They wanted to know if I would be ready for November but that’s just not possible, especially a fight like that. I need at least three to four weeks of sparring.

“I need to know it is fully healed and I need proper training with sparring to get ready and I am hoping December time it will get rescheduled. It depends how big the hole in my eardrum in my ear is.”