Four days after his mandatory WBO world title defence against Welshman Joe Calzaghe in Sheffield on October 11th, the boxer Steve Collins is due to appear in the High Court in Dublin.
He is being sued for $453,000 (£304,000) by the boxing promoter Mr Barry Hearne and Matchroom Boxing Ltd.
Mr Hearne claims the money is his contracted percentage of the Irish boxer's return fight purse against Chris Eubank. Mr Frank Warren was the promoter for that fight.
Mr Hearne and his promotions company are also claiming 25 per cent of all Warren-promoted fights won by Collins in his defences of the WBO world title up until May 1996, during which time, he alleges, Collins was still tied to Matchroom Boxing Ltd.
Collins denies the claims and has lodged a full defence in the proceedings.
Yesterday, his counsel, Mr Colm Allen SC, applied for a postponement of the October 15th trial in the High Court on the grounds that further instructions were required from his client, who was currently out of the jurisdiction in Jersey undergoing intensive training preparations for the fight.
Mr Allen said boxers were intensively prepared for fights nowadays.
Those in charge of the preparations required that their minds were kept free of all concerns or matters other than the physical bout ahead of them.
He said it was not open to a boxer simply to disappear on the night of a fight. There were medical formalities and other matters to be dealt with on the following day, and even the day after.
He felt it would be unjust for his client to have to interrupt his fight preparations to provide further instructions or have to apply his mind only hours after the fight to such an important litigation.
"To impose that sort of a burden on the defendant is undesirable in circumstances where there is no reason why a new date cannot be found for the hearing of the action in the forthcoming term," Mr Allen said.
"It is a very serious litigation and I cannot but emphasise the gravity of an action that could have the gravest of consequences for my client," he said.
Mr Rory Brady SC, for Mr Hearne and Matchroom Boxing Ltd, opposed any adjournment on the grounds it could finish up not being heard until well into next year.
He said the fullest instructions had obviously been taken from Collins prior to the filing of his very full and complex defence to the proceedings.
Mr Hearne would be calling a significant number of expert witnesses from the United Kingdom and the United States, all of whom had been informed of the October 15th trial date.
Mr Justice Budd refused an adjournment. He said the date had already been specially fixed and he had no doubt very full instructions had already been taken.