Bermuda Broadcasting Company's attempt to exclusively show the Mike Tyson v Andrew Golota boxing match ended in farce on Friday when it could not get a signal for the bout.

The station took out injunctions against four bars in Hamilton preventing them showing the contest, claiming it had an exclusive contract with Joe Hand Promotions of Pennsylvania to show the fight in Bermuda.

But ZBM was forced to give a full refund to more than 200 disappointed fight fans who paid $50 each to see the contest at Club Azure in St. David's.

The fans demanded their money back after promoters were unable to broadcast the fight.

Some went to nearby St. George's where Kippie's Place, was showing the fight.

The injunction was taken out against the Robin Hood, M.R. Onions, Flanagan's and The Beach, but it is understood the fight was shown in other city bars not named in the legal action.

Angry fight fan Alan Daniels who went to Club Azure told The Royal Gazette yesterday: "It was a big farce.

"They had it on ZMB all day that this was the only place to see it and they had taken out injunctions, then this happens.

"I spent $100 on two tickets and drove all the way to St. David's and they never even picked up a signal.

"They were showing old clips of Troy Darrell then they cut it off at around 11.45 p.m. and I assumed they were going to start the preliminary fights, but the screen stayed blank.

"By then they must have known they were not getting the fight because the preliminary fights had already begun.

"One guy queued to get his money back and then everyone else queued for their money.

"To make matters worse, if you had to dash back to town you would probably have missed the fight.

"We all went to St. George's because we had heard about it by word of mouth.'' A ZBM news broadcast yesterday stated that the problem was "decoder authorisation at source''.

It said management at Club Azure were not at fault and that overseas distributors were trying to avoid "local piracy'' and rescramble the code.

The news broadcast warned that Club Azure and ZBM would "seek redress'' against those pubs which showed the fight despite the injunction.

However, the Supreme Court injunction seen by The Royal Gazette on Friday evening only named the Robin Hood, M.R. Onions, The Beach and Flanagan's.