He was to be the promoter for Sultan-Chagaev, and now he's doing Sultan-Holyfield. Reading his comments on Fightnews... ====================================== [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Next to speak was Yuri Fedorov, "World boxing is a huge business today. There are a lot of political collisions, streams and flows and we have to take them into account. It's worth saying that all Sultan's opponents are falling out or trying to avoid him due to some medical problems and that's really very strange. The same thing twice. First the Briggs fight and now Ruslan Chagaev is also unavailable. It's very sad. However, good news is that we have been warned about the possible cancellation months, not days, before this clash would have started."[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"It's true that every cloud has its silver lining. For us that lining is in Evander's gray hair. I will put it straight our fans need Evander Holyfield a lot more than Ruslan Chagaev. Who is that guy from Uzbekistan? Does anybody know him? Not me! It would have been a hard time to promote such a fight even in spite of its unification nature. Russian spectators know almost nothing about Ruslan, and they do know much about 'the Real Deal.' He is a legend, four-time heavyweight world champion and the first man to crush the seemingly invincible Mike Tyson. The Ibragimov-Chagaev bout is a fight between the glorified past and the talented future. It's useless to say what a great show these guys can provide. That's why I'm not as disappointed as it seems to be."[/FONT] [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Chagaev is a legitimate WBA champion. He is not a paper champion, as he has won his belt in a tough war with Nikolay Valuev. Hence he has every right to fight whomever he wants to fight. But anyway he won't be able to defend his title this year. Not that good for the sport of boxing, of course."[/FONT] ====================================== So is this part of the reason for the very quick change? They're paranoid that this is some kind of delaying tactic rather than an actual illness? It's worth pointing out that Briggs did still fight Sultan, and his complaints after losing are moot considering Sultan got what he wanted in that WBO belt. Did they jump the gun? Trashing Chagaev's profile is not only the pot calling the kettle black, but long-term harms any chances of promoting a fight between the two. I guess we can all forget about any chance of Chagaev-Sultan unification happening...how do you promote a fight when you've openly derided a guy for being an unknown and difficult to push tickets for? Seems very short-sighted. Trying to make some kind of concession at the end comes across very weak and trying to wave the flag of 'the good of boxing' is particularly two-faced. Oh, and is Buster Douglas gonna have to slap a *****?
IMO scraping himself off canvas with a help of a slow count to get lucky later is some great show of guts, but hardly can be considered "crushing". Holyfield did a bit better then that. Dude has somewhat of a point. Does not matter though.
