Yvon Michel
will be an interested observer of the proceedings at the Staples Center this weekend where WBC light
heavyweight champion Bernard Hopkins faces Chad Dawson. Michel’s company, GYM,
represents the man who once held this title and has faced both men, Jean
Pascal. What takes place on Saturday night will play a large part in determining
their future.
But Michel
is still disappointed at the inability to close a fight with IBF beltholder
Tavoris Cloud and he took some exception to some of the comments made by Cloud’s
promoter, Don King, as it related to those negotiations (the-curious-case-of-tavoris-cloud ).
Michel told
Maxboxing on Monday afternoon, “Look, I'm very, very surprised that we haven't
been able to make the deal. We started negotiating over the phone. Don invited
me to Ft. Lauderdale (where DKP's offices are located) to see him. He said, ‘We'll
finish face-to-face.’ So I went there and so we sat from two in the afternoon
till eight at night. Everything seemed to be alright. The deal was 50/50 on the
gate, 50/50 on the HBO money. [King] wanted to keep the international TV, so I
said, ‘OK, if you keep international TV, I'll keep Canadian television.’ He
said, ‘OK.’ He asked for a rematch. I said yes. He said, ‘After a rematch if
it's 1-1, we do a third one.’ I said ‘OK.’”
According
to Michel, the deal breaker was when King demanded options on his fighter. Then
he relented to give him a piece of the Pascal pie in future bouts that did not
involve Hopkins, Dawson or Lucian Bute. Michel explained, “[King] was insisting
and insisting to have options, so I said, ‘Look, I'll give you options but without
one of those three guys.’”
Michel also
took exception to King labeling Pascal a ‘loser.’ To him, it doesn't matter if
Cloud has a belt because Pascal has something even more important than a world
title- he has a large constituency he can consistently draw upon in Montreal where he plays second fiddle only
to Bute. Pascal, by all objective standards, is one of the biggest draws in North America.
“Look, I
don't know how much money Cloud made in his last couple fights but Jean Pascal
made near $5 million and that's not because of American television but because
of the market that we have developed here for him. He's making more money on
non-title fights than Cloud is making defending his title. If Don would have
said, ‘Look, I have a similar fight deal in Miami.’ We would've said, ‘Yes,
right away.’”
With or
without Cloud, Pascal will move ahead with his business. His living, unlike
most American boxers’, is not solely reliant on license fees from the premium
cable networks.
“It was a
great opportunity. Look, it's a tough fight. Jean Pascal and Tavoris Cloud is a
tough fight and I have to say that for Jean Pascal. he always aims for the
toughest fights out there. He fought Carl Froch in his hometown. He fought
Adrian Diaconu twice. [Diaconu] was undefeated when he fought [Pascal] the
first time. He fought Chad Dawson when [Dawson] was undefeated, one of the best
pound-for-pound He was number five by Ring magazine. He fought Bernard Hopkins. And because Hopkins and Dawson were busy,
so he said, ‘The best guy out there is Tavoris Cloud. Let's try to make a deal,’
and this is what we tried to do,” said Michel, who says that his man is
scheduled to go again in Montreal on December 10th.
“We're
probably going to wait till after the Hopkins-Dawson fight to decide what we're
going to do,” he says. “We might fight Zsolt Erdei or fight Chris Henry-
Henry's not happy with the deal he has to fight Ismayl Sillakh in Russia. We have time. We've got to take a
look at what's going on with the winner. The Hopkins-Dawson fight and we might
make a decision right after.”
So will
Pascal-Cloud negotiations resume in 2012?
“What we were told- and again, we never went to Don King and said, ‘Look, we
have HBO. It was not that way,” claimed Michel, “We were told it was a fight
that Kery Davis [of HBO Sports] told me, ‘It's a fight that I love and it's a
weight division where HBO is investing and it's an intriguing fight and for sure,
it's an interesting fight.’ Jean Pascal, when he fought on Showtime with
Hopkins, it was the best rating in the last three years on Showtime. When he
fought Hopkins on HBO, it was the best rating on HBO since [Chris] Arreola and
[Vitali] KIitschko two years before. And we're convinced that a Cloud-Pascal
fight would be exciting and entertaining. It's a fight that HBO would buy but
what we were told is, ‘Make the deal and we'll find a date.’ And when I sat
with Don King, he said, ‘Look, I don't need to talk to Kery Davis. I talk to [HBO
President] Michael Lombardo and definitely I can have an HBO date. We come to
an agreement, we can move forward.’ The expectation on his side, he would have
made something like $1.5 million. I don't know how much he pays Cloud but Cloud
wants to get paid a seven-number figure and I believe he deserves it.
“With that
kind of deal, [King] would've been able to pay [Cloud] that kind of money.”
BLAME IT ON
THE GOOS(S)E(N)?
So after
all that stink raised by Dan Goossen a few weeks ago, they don't even make a
bid and in the process, cost Ramos a substantial amount of money? And to boot,
deprive him of an opportunity to fight on a high-profile show like the Miguel Cotto-Antonio
Margarito II card at Madison Square Garden?
“That again shows the craziness in this business,” said Bob Arum of Top Rank,
who was befuddled by the whole situation. “If he felt that the offer was wrong
or so forth, I respect that, even though in my version, [Goossen] agreed to
everything. But OK, so he changed his mind or he says I had offered more money
but now, if you're not going to bid at all on the thing- which he didn't bid, what
are you talking about?! Why put everybody through all this trouble and angst
and end up with less money? What is the game plan?”
It turns
out that Top Rank, who was represented by Carl Moretti, was the only promoter
to bid on this bout. Now both boxers stand to make less money. “Blame Dan
Goossen,” said Arum, whose initial plan is to put this fight on December 17th at the Winstar Casino in Thackerville, Oklahoma on a “Top Rank Live” telecast. “But we'll
take care of our fighter.”
As for
Moretti, well, at least he got to see Panama.
“I saw the
canal...it's still there,” he quipped.
HAYE FEVER
Like any
other statements or promises of retirements from prizefighters, the reports of
heavyweight David Haye calling it a day have to be taken with a grain of salt.
But I think @FauxBobArum said it best when he tweeted: “If reports of David
Haye retiring are true, I'd like to thank him for sparing us from the Vitali
fight.”
(By the way,
@FauxBobArum is hilarious, definitely worth a follow.)
FALL
FLURRIES
Wealth TV
will televise Don King’s card on Nov. 5th that features Guillermo Jones...I saw
the documentary “JC Chavez” on ESPN Classic (aired as part of Hispanic Heritage
Month) and I enjoyed it. There was this great scene where the great Chavez
tells his son before a fight that he has to focus on keeping his weight down
in-between fights- and this was in 2005!...Speaking of purse bids, nobody bid on
the fight held by the IBF between Sechew Powell and Deandre Latimore. So if
nobody bids on a fight, does it make a sound?...Speaking of docs, I'd love to
see one on Al Davis from HBO Sports. Love him or hate him, his impact on the game
and business of football cannot be denied. He was both a pariah and pioneer...I
think the Bears’ QB, Jay Cutler, takes more clean hits than your average heavy
bag at the Wild Card Boxing Club. A flawed system plus a bad O-line and having no
real elite wide receiver is a recipe for disaster...If I'm the Arizona
Wildcats, I hire “The Pirate” Mike Leach to lead my football program...I think
the formula for Coke will be released before the pay-per-view figures for Floyd
Mayweather-Victor Ortiz...
