Ernesto Dallas gives his side on why Salita-Santana didn’t happen

Boxngtalk.com recently spoke with Ernesto Dallas, manager of up and coming Jr. Welterweight prospect Edgar “El Chamaco” Santana 20-2(13). In this one on one, Dallas gives us is side as to why the highly anticipated match up between Santana and undefeated Dmitriy “The Star of David” Salita 26-0-1(15) that was suppose to take place on February 17th on HBO Boxing after Dark Series. 

RC: How’s everything going on Ernesto?
ED: Everything is good, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you, and Boxingtalk. Santana is back in the gym. We are still fighting February 17th, the freight train hasn’t stopped we still have stopped our momentum we are still in the gym.

RC: Last time you and I spoke, we were waiting for Dmitriy Salita to accept a fight with your guy Edgar Santana on HBO Boxing after Dark (B.A.D.), we haven’t spoke to you since and we all now know that fight isn’t happening. From my understanding you would like to clear up some misunderstandings as to why the fight wasn’t made.
ED: Yes, the Salita–Santana fight was water under the bridge as far as I was concerned, the fight didn’t happen, and you know that is the nature of the beast in boxing. But people have been coming up to me telling me that the reason the fight didn’t happen based on what they had been told is that Santana didn’t take the fight because he priced himself out of the fight. I want to let everyone know that that’s observed, that’s comical and that’s not even close to true. We said yes to the fight before discussing money with Lou DiBella and you don’t have to take my word for it, call the DiBella office. So if the fight didn’t happen its’ on the Salita side.

RC: Salita did come on the record here on Boxingtalk saying that he would accept the fight with Santana. So if you are saying you accepted the fight even before money was mentioned accepted, what happened? Why didn’t it fall through?
ED: Well Salita has become a master of duplicity, he says one thing and does another but that is clearly his business. My concern is people thinking that we didn’t take the fight. Why he didn’t take the fight? Because he never had any intentions on fighting Santana, the person he was looking to fight was Mathew Strode 20-2(9). Santana was not the guy that he ever considered; Santana was the guy that Lou DiBella wanted. Santana was the guy that HBO wanted but Salita never wanted Santana. He was trying to get Mathew Strode to fight him on HBO.HBO flat out rejected Mathew Strode, that is the reason why the fight never happened. Santana was never under serious consideration for Salita in his mind. But it is a victory for us because HBO wanted Santana and so did Lou DiBella so that goes to show you what kind of standing Santana has now with HBO and Lou DiBella.

RC: You mentioned the guy Salita wanted to fight was Mathew Strode, so are you….
ED: (Cutting in) He used Edgar Santana’s name as a smokescreen. Lou DiBella and HBO didn’t, but Salita did. Everyone wanted the fight except Salita. He wants to save face. Everybody was interested in the Salita-Santana match up, that is the match everyone was asking about. The match up that the network wanted, and that was the match up that Lou DiBella bought up to me. I never called out Salita they came to me with the fight, and I said yes. However Salita thinks he is a showcase fighter, he thinks he can fight on HBO whoever he wants to fight because he thinks he is that kind of a showcase fighter. The fact of the matter is he is not that kind of a showcase fighter. In order for him to fight on HBO he has to fight a viable quality opponent, that is what the network wants and that quality viable opponent was Edgar Santana, not any of these other guys he was trying to mention. You know he doesn’t have that kind of leverage that he can just show up on premium HBO network T.V. and fight whoever he wants. I mean look at his last few performances. Has his last four performances been entertaining enough that you would just want to see him move around the ring with someone? ABSOLUTELY NOT! That’s why all of his options were flatly rejected and Edgar Santana was the only man standing that HBO was willing to accept for Salita

RC: You mentioned you will still be fighting February 17th. Any word on who you guys will be facing?
ED: Here is the deal, we are the last fight right before the T.V. bout before Sechew Powell (Versus Ishe Smith), clearly disappointed that we are not the opening show on HBO B.A.D. but it is a moral victory for us because we were accepted by the network and you know that is a big part of this business, which is to get accepted as a cable T.V. network fighter which Santana based on this past situation clearly is. We also have some other options that DiBella has also told us. We are looking at ShoBox we are looking at ESPN, those things are coming extremely concrete right now, ’06 was a banner year and ’07 is going to be an even better year. So we are still going to take the fight, we are going to warm up the crowd for Paulie (Malignaggi vs. Edner Cherry) and for Sechew (vs. Ishe Smith), we love it but we do have some serious options that we are on the table as we speak right now for subsequent fights in ’07. So things are all good for us, we are happy I am extremely pleased at the way things have been developing for us.

RC: Do you think there is a possibility that we might still get to see Salita-Santana in ’07?
ED:  I don’t know it is up to Salita. We will fight him whenever, if he wants to fight we will fight, if he doesn’t want to fight we don’t care we have options. Santana’s career momentum is not predicated on what Salita does. Salita is in his own lane, and we are in our own lane. We have plenty of options. We are in very good standing with Lou DiBella.  With the way we do business, DiBella has absolutely no problems with us that’s why the options in ‘07 continue to open up for us.  The Jr. Welterweight division is not revolving around Salita, they are plenty of other talented fighters in the Jr. Welterweight division, and they are plenty of other very exiting match ups for us in the Jr. Welterweight division, plenty options. If he wants to fight let’s do it, if not get out of the way we have things to do.

RC: You keep mentioning that you guys have lots of options in ’07. Can you give us an idea of some of the other options you have available in ‘07
ED: One of the options is a February 16th ShoBox date.

RC: Any possible opponents mentioned for Santana yet and Can we expect to see him in there with someone as comparable as Salita?
ED: Yes, the first guy on the plate was Americo Santos but we don’t know exactly what is going to happen with that yet, but we will keep you posted

RC: Is there anything else you would like to add in closing?
ED: I want to wish everyone on Boxingtalk happy New Year, don’t look at what I say watch what we do. ’07 is going to be another banner year for Santana. Santana is just getting better, he is getting more explosive, he is hitting harder, he is moving quicker and he is going to be a problem in the Jr. Welterweight division. I am extremely excited about all of the potential match ups, there are a lot of good fighters in the division and I think it is going to be a good year for the division. A lot of people think that it is not going to be a good division because everybody moved to 147lbs, but there are still a lot of good guys at 140lbs that is going to make it an explosive year.

TEST

Send questions and comments to: BksCam@gmail.com