Kendall Holt Returns October 14th!

Over the weekend Boxingtalk.com had the pleasure of speaking with Duva Boxing Head, Dino Duva about the remarks made about him coming from undefeated Jr. Welterweight prospect Paul “The Magic Man” Malignaggi’s advisor Johnny Bos, which came in response to Duva’s press release stating that Team Malignaggi is backing out of a January 21st ShoBox bout against Oscar Diaz, after previously agreeing to the fight via verbal commitment. In this one on one, Duva also lets us in on what the future holds for Duva Boxing’s up and coming talent such as Demetrius Hopkins 16-0-1(6), Samuel Peter 20-0(17), Oscar Diaz 18-1(11) and Kendall Holt 15-1(11) who will headline a Darwish Brothers promoted fight card at the Robert Treat Hotel, Newark this Thursday night.

RC: Dino, can you give us your thoughts on Johnny Bos’ response to your press release issued earlier week?

DD: First of all I think Johnny is in one of his over medicated binges. Because he is obviously not talking straight, this isn’t about Jealousy of Paulie Malignaggi that’s ridiculous. That is totally ridiculous, I like Paulie Malignaggi, I think he is a nice kid, I think he is good for the sport, and he is Italian. I always root for Italians, I hope he does good, I really do. I am not jeal…..nobody is jealous of Malignaggi, it is ridiculous. The fact is that the reason I put out my original press release a couple days ago is very simple and this is where Johnny is wrong. We have been talking to Lou DiBella (Paulie’s Promoter) and Johnny Bos (Paulie Advisor) for two years, before Oscar Diaz had any losses. We were talking about it when he was undefeated and Paulie was undefeated. Lou and I always agreed that as soon we got a T.V. date that made sense we would do the fight. Johnny himself told me that he would do the fight, so Johnny is a Liar.

Lou DiBella had a verbal agreement for the last almost a year before Oscar Diaz even lost to Ebo Elder, that we would do Malignaggi and Diaz, and we reconfirmed it even after the Ebo Elder fight happened.

RC: So I guess on your end that eliminates the excuse that Diaz lost against Elder and that is why they are no longer interested?

DD: It is ridiculous; we were talking about this fight for the last two years, that’s bullshit. Oscar lost to Ebo Elder in March, we have been talking about this fight since last year, and that since the beginning of last year. Lou and I have been talking about building up this fight for a long time. Even after the Ebo Elder fight when I got Oscar a win back, right after the Ebo Elder fight he said absolutely we want to fight him, we like the fight and Johnny Bos Okayed it. He said get Oscar a win and then we will try to sell it to ShoBox. Then that is what we did, we got Oscar a win in July, we talked to ShoBox recently, they told us January 21st they gave to Lou DiBella and they would love to do it on that show. Then I called up Lou earlier this week and I said Lou you got the date lets do it! He said “ Well I got to think about it, we are looking at some other things now” I mean that is how it went, Johnny is full of SHIT! Now this other stuff about being jealous of Paulie Malignaggi, I mean come on, I mean all the shit we have been through in this business and fighters we have been involved with we are going to be jealous of another fighter. I like Paulie and my father likes Paulie. Like I said he is Italian, I am rooting for him, I like the guy, I think he is good for the sport. We are just trying to make good fights, that is all we are trying to do, and the fact is they gave me their verbal commitment that we will do the fight and then they went back on it, and that is the truth.

I do know that my Father (Lou Duva) says that is ridiculous, I don’t really know the details. I know my father was working with Malignaggi when he was amateur, for whatever reason they didn’t get together and do a deal, but I don’t know the details of what happened. I don’t know what he is talking about. My father can go over with you in detail about why they didn’t get together ads a professional but this thing about the travel some $238 travel fee that is ridiculous.

RC: What do you think about his offer to put (Jeffrey) Resto against Diaz?

DD: I have considered the fight but that is the first time it has been discussed. It is amazing that Johnny flips it around because he wants to protect Paulie Malignaggi, he talks about not wanting to fight a guy who lost, and Jeffrey Resto has lost two times in a row. It is such a phony bullshit that Johnny is giving just trying to protect Malignaggi. He is afraid to put him in with anybody, which is the truth. I am not jealous of him, I wish him the best and I just hoped that they can honor their word because they made a commitment to do the fight and now we have a date and they are backing out of it, that’s all I am pissed off about. The way he flips it around and tried to throw Resto’s name out there is phony. I mean come on we never even talked about that fight.

RC: So is it a fight that you will give deeper thought to?

DD: No, I mean right now I want to fight Malignaggi because we had a verbal commitment, and I am hoping they honor their word. If they want to back out of it, then hey…...their is nothing I can do about it, I can’t force them to get into the ring, but that doesn’t mean that I am going to let them try to con everybody into telling me I should fight Resto, tell them to find something Rest, he took a bigger back step than anybody, why should we fight him. The same bullshit that he is giving me about Diaz, which is Bullshit anyway, I am not going to play that game.

RC: Recently here on Bxingtalk.com Pat Doljanin manager of Al “Speedy” Gonzales responded and said they would like to fight Oscar Diaz, give us your thoughts on that?

DD: That is a fight I would look at, that is a good little fight. That is a good competitive fight, that is a good exciting fight styles wise. I like that fight, I mean if Paulie Malignaggi won’t go throw with the Diaz fight I would definitely look at Speedy Gonzales. I have my own ShoBox date in February hopefully and I would look to put it on that.

RC: Well from the looks of things it seems like Paulie is going to face Sandro Casamonica later this year…

DD: Yeah well, you know I am kind of pissed off at Lou, because Lou gave me his word many many times. I mean we have actually talked and planned this fight for a long long time, and I am kind of pissed off that he has gone back on it. But hey, once again that is the boxing business.

RC: Let’s turn our attention to some of the other prospects on your roster like Demetrius Hopkins, what’s next for him?

DD: Demetrius is really ready to step up a notch and he wants to fight a contender to try and get into the title picture. We are going to get him one more fight to keep busy before the end of the year, and then we are going to try and get him a T.V. fight against a top contender next year. There are a couple things in the works that I’d rather not really talk about in detail because whenever you talk about thing that you are working on and they are not done yet, people always try and sabotage them. But the bottom line is our plan is to get him one more fight to keep busy before the end of this year and then hopefully in the first quarter of next year get him a big fight against a top contender to get him into the title picture.

RC: Is that a top 20, 15 or 10 contender?

DD: As high as possible, definitely top ten or fifteen. Hopefully I would like to even try to get somebody in the top five.

RC: Any particular names you might be looking at?

DD: I don’t have any specific names honestly, the main thing I am working on now is trying to put together a date and a show that I can go out there and make the fight for.

RC: How about Kendall Holt who recently lost a few months back to Tommy Davis?

DD: Kendall is going to be fighting this week; he finally got the suspension lifted from that Chicago incident. We have a slot for him next this week on a show in Newark that the Darwish Brothers are doing. (At the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark, New Jersey for tickets call 973-237-9898)

RC: If not Malignaggi because it doesn’t seem as if that fight is going to happen, then what is next for Diaz?

DD: Oscar is going to fight in November in San Antonio on a small little club show, and we had the plan it was all set to fight in November then January against Malignaggi but now it looks like they are going to bail out of that so my goal would be to get Oscar on a T.V. show around the same time frame, January of February, but he is fighting in November in San Antonio and Speedy Gonzales is definitely somebody we would consider and look at. It’s a good fight, it is a good exciting T.V. fight, and it is good television. That is why Lou and I always wanted to make Malignaggi and Diaz, it is a great T.V. fight, it is a terrific T.V. fight, Oscar and it is a real good action packed fight. Oscar will make Malignaggi. But whatever if these guys changed their mind and they just want to overly protect Paulie then that is there business. The only thing that started this whole thing when we put the press release out because we had a verbal commitment from them and they are going back on them, Johnny Bos is full of shit.

RC: How about Samuel Peter?

DD: We are very close to getting Sam a big fight on either ShowTime or HBO, it could be the end of this year, but it shouldn’t be any later than the first quarter of next year. We are looking at a couple things that are being talked about for either Showtime or HBO, we are trying top get his foot in the door with one of these big networks so they can we can prove what he can do.

RC: I would imagine wit him getting a fight on either of those networks he would be facing a pretty highly rated conten…

DD: (Cutting in) Ooh absolutely, absolutely, we have offered the fight to DaVarryl Williamson.

RC: And what happened there?

DD: DaVarryl’s promoter said they are interested; they just got to see what he wants to do.

RC: Does he currently have a promoter right now?

DD: I hear that Warriors s in the process of renegotiating with him, I don’t know if their contract ran out or not. But up until the Klitschko fight he was with Warriors and that is who I talked to after the fight was over. Because of the way the fight ended a lot of people thought DaVarryl should have been ahead on points. But the bottom line is Samuel Peter will fight anybody, we will pout him in with any Heavyweight in the world. We just got to try and find somebody to get in the ring with him

RC: So what’s next for Duva boxing in general? Can we look forward to any big shows coming up?

DD: The rest of this year we are just going to try to keep our fighters busy, keep them winner, keeping them active and then there is a lot of big T.V. situations that we are working on beginning next year and I am confident that we are going to have some good thing going next year.

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