Rules that govern the sport of boxing have reigned supreme on the matter regarding the South African middleweight title fight between holder Walter Dlamini and Frank Rodriguez, scheduled to take place in Springs on Sunday.

Dlamini must make a mandatory defence and that means he must face the No1 contender.

Rodriguez is rated No6 and to make matters worse Rodriguez lost his last fight via a stoppage to Dlamini in July last year.

Chairperson of the sanctioning committee Khulile Radu ruled: "Rodriguez is not a mandatory challenger and he definitely needs to redeem himself before he becomes eligible for an SA title challenge because he lost his last fight by a stoppage."

That means the SA title fight is not taking place. Promoter Sandile Xaka of Supreme Boxing Promotions found the ruling hard to swallow.

"The tournament will still go ahead but it will be a normal tournament which does not have a title fight," he said.

BSA's director of operations Cindy Nkomo said: "As BSA we urgently need to ensure that all the rules that guide the sanctioning of tournaments are made available on our website as a standard operating manual so that licensees, especially promoters and matchmakers who put together a tournament bill, can refer to them and ensure that their matchmaking does not deviate from these rules.

"We therefore want to assure the boxing community that before the beginning of the new financial year we will have sorted this matter."