jamamb wrote: ↑14 Mar 2018, 02:08
well the wbo top 15 is pretty much just weak opponents
the two who stand out (browne and alvarez) are both haymon fighters and we know the politics. the wbc and ibf champ are both with haymon too
tbf barrera twice turned down offers to be a kov comeback opponent (once for the shab date and once for the mikhlakin date) and i think he wouldve been perfectly acceptable
who is the best realistic option? cant see it being anyone too good when there gonna hold off from bivol. i think duva prob wants to get the most from each of them as she can because she doesnt have much else.
The obvious reasons why Barrera chose to face Bivol for less money than he would have earned facing Kovalev was because: at the time of the discussions, his bout against Krusher wasn’t going to be for a world title; Kathy Duva’s offers came with extra conditions that he couldn’t agree to; and also due to his contest against the little-known Dmitry was considered as being a toss-up type competitive fight for the WBA world championship.
Barrera rejected an opportunity to face Artur Beterbiev, because the outcome of the resulting winning purse bid meant that he was only being paid $62,500.
The Cuban claims that he took both the Shabanskyy and Joe Smith Jr. bouts “for no money” and he felt that he deserved to be paid fairly after gaining those wins. So he said that he’d take $300K to face Kovalev as long as they’d guarantee him more money if he won, but Kathy Duva wasn’t interested.
Apparently, Kathy Duva submitted a second offer to Barrera, but not only was it was $100K less than her initial proposal; it also included a stipulation that he had to sign with Main Events for the remainder of his career, so he turned her down.
From what I’ve read, Kathy Duva used the age old promoter tactic of insisting to submit a lowball offer and then subsequently proclaiming “duck” when it wasn’t accepted, which helps perpetuate the myth that “nobody wants to face Kovalev”.
In regards to Sergey Kovalev’s last two opponents, Igor Mikhalkin and Vyacheslav Shabranskyy, neither man was even rated in the WBO’s top-15 rankings at the time those bouts were announced. So the excuse of having a list of limited calibre qualified WBO contenders is irrelevant.
