Bobby Vanzie's Commonwealth lightweight title defence against James Armah is back on.

It will now be staged at Bowlers, Manchester on Saturday, February 3, and the Bradford boxer is hoping it will be a case of third time lucky.

Armah, the Commonwealth super-featherweight champion, has twice pulled out of the contest in the past three months.

The most dramatic was last week's withdrawal at 48 hours notice which resulted in the entire show at Liverpool's Everton Park Sports Centre being cancelled.

A cut eye was given as the official excuse for the postponement, but it is commonly believed that Armah was overweight.

The promoters are now insisting that Armah arrives in Britain a week before the re-arranged contest and they are expected to line-up a replacement opponent in case he is declared unfit again.

Vanzie, who has remained in full training, said: "I am delighted the fight is back on, but I must admit that I have my fingers crossed that nothing else can go wrong.

"I want to beat Armah and then move on from there. My hunger for defeating him has increased with all the problems."

The delay in the Armah fight has resulted in the British Boxing Board putting back the closing date for purse bids for Vanzie's mandatory British and Commonwealth title defence against Harlow's Steve Murray to February 14.

But Vanzie has been warned that if Murray's management team win the bidding they will want the fight on March 5, and if the champion is not ready to fight he could be stripped of his title.

"We will cross that bridge when we come to it," said Vanzie. "It might be that I decide to vacate if I am not ready."