Boxing:Wayne McCullough insists his hunger to continue fighting will not be diminished by yesterday's farcical cancellation of his scheduled return to the ring in Belfast tonight.
McCullough's highly-anticipated homecoming was scrapped after his Spanish opponent failed to make the weight.
The Belfast veteran was set to meet European super-bantamweight champion Kiko Martinez at the King's Hall in a non-title contest but the Spaniard was unable to meet the eight-stone 12-pound limit.
Martinez was one and three-quarter pounds overweight and despite having an hour to go away and take the excess off, he did not return to the scales.
McCullough, 37, accused the Spaniard of bottling the fight but insists he remains determined to continue boxing.
"The first thing you say is that it's put you off," he said.
"But I love to fight, I pray to God something good comes out of this.
"It's the third fight that's fallen through in the last year. I could have fought last Friday night in St Lucia, my old promoter Dan Goosen offered me a fight there but he knew this fight came up and that it was a bigger fight for me.
"But I could have been in the Bahamas now putting my feet up on the beach."
The Las Vegas-based former world bantamweight champion had been set to return to the ring after an absence of two and a half years and was seen as a major outsider against Martinez, who took the European belt from Dubliner Bernard Dunne in August, handing the Irishman his first professional defeat with an 86-second blitz.
The fight was scheduled for 10 rounds with Martinez's title not on the line, as McCullough's inactivity meant the European Boxing Union would not sanction it as a defence.
McCullough said: "I'm gutted, totally gutted. I'm just puzzled, it's like the twilight zone.
"I told my wife about six weeks ago I had a feeling that the guy didn't want to fight me.
"We came over two weeks before the fight and then at the weigh-in the guy gets on the scales and doesn't even try.
"The Board gave him one hour to lose the weight and he sits down and drinks a bottle of water!
"He was shaking like a leaf. You could see in his eyes, he just didn't want it.
"His promoter and manager came over to me and said 'so what are you going to do, he's not going to make the weight'.
"I said 'well he has to try, at least!'.
"The catchweight was 8 stone 12lbs. I originally wanted to fight for his belt at 12st 10lbs (the super bantamweight limit) but five weeks ago it was changed because he didn't want to fight for the belt, so we made it at the weight of 8st 12lbs.
"I was angry because everybody was behind me. Someone said it was unprofessional for me to come in under the weight and I was like 'what? are you kidding me? If I'm 10 or 20 pounds below the weight it doesn't matter. If I'm overweight, there's trouble."
McCullough added: "If the shoe was on the other foot they would have made me (lose the weight). I lost the weight professionally.
"He's European champion, and he just gets off the scales. He didn't even try to get half a pound off."