I heard Sergio's team said they don't want to fight Pirog because he is an unkown! Is this true? It would be nice to see more of Pirog in 2011 but I can't find out what his plans are. Is there any defense of his strap happening soon or any mandatory boxer in the mix?
It irritates me as well to see him sitting on the shelve and not hear anything from the guy for months now. He is 30 he should be fighting more active. He is one big fight away from becoming a big name at middleweight like martinez is now. I wish golden boy would just sign him and marketing the hell out of that mad russian, he is a awesome fighter.
This is what pisses me off about these fighters. They come to the U.S/UK, score a great win and dissapear for months and it just seems as if they're satisified with there one win. For f sake, get in America and make a career for yourself. It's embarassing how some posters can lay out a better plan for fighters than the actual Manager's themselves. He should have attempted to get the earliest HBO date he could after that and fought to keep his name in the press.
It's annoying but I wouldn't sit around waiting for him to pop up again. The dude has 17 fights in 5 1/2 years. Most guys have that many in their first 2 1/2 years. He obviously doesn't rush to get in the ring again. Besides it will probably take a miracle to get him a fight with one of the titlists considering Sylvester and Sturm would never face him in a million years and Martinez doesn't want anything to do with him.
Unfortunately, it's usually not the fighter's fault that happens. Alot of them don't have favorable risk/reward ratios for the network- their skill or resume is stronger than their ratings potential for U.S. promoters and networks, and so agreements are rarely met and it's tough to justify from a business standpoint. This is especially true for those who don't get major attention from U.S. promoters early on in their career and build their craft in a different country. By the time a guy like Sergio Martinez gets here, for example, he's already in his mid-30's before he can catch a break and he'll still be the first to get screwed on behalf of a more heavily promoted fighter who networks and promoters are more invested in. Pirog's a gamebreaker like that- big names don't want him because there's no money in fighting him, and HBO doesn't want to pay for him to get the fight without knowing he'll pull ratings in. That's why we've seen the network play it safe with the matches they make, and the little-known foreign fighters are the ones who get screwed by that. If they don't win by knockout or shutout, they're not winning. For example, Kotelnik's career is basically screwed for showing up Alexander in his hometown on HBO in a fight where HBO wanted to build up Alexander-Bradley. Don King has made him move up in weight, and there's still no word on his next fight.
See below. This. Or look at guys like Erdei or Dzinziruk who went through lengthy legal battles to get free of Universum. Dzinziruk re-located to LA and signed with Shaw and Shaw has done **** all for him. Where did you read that? I read an interview with Pirog's promoter he was asked why Pirog hasn't fought since the Jacobs fight. He said hat he could get Pirog a fight in Russia but Pirog wants to fight in the US...but HBO hasn't shown interest.
