Ibragimov manager speaks out

By G. Leon

23/02/2007

Ibragimov manager speaks out

"After we beat Briggs or if he pulls out again, Thompson is the first guy we're looking for!"

GL: Tell me what's on your mind Boris? "There has been a lot of rumors about our team and what we do and why we have to fight. There's only one thing I have to say. Sultan Ibragimov is a fighter. He hasn't fought in eight months and he's not going to wait three months more. He's prepared himself very well to fight Shannon Briggs and he's working great in sparring and he's in tremendous shape. Turning that off is very difficult for Sultan. We tried to make an interim fight happen, but that didnt' happen for a lot of reason. Sultan has to fight and he will fight Javier Mora. The most difficult part of this business is when this guy pulled out the promoter lost like $500,000. He lost HBO, he lost money that he put up. When they heard it wasn't going to be Ibragimov and Briggs, they cancelled the fight. All of the tickets had to be returned and they just started selling them again Friday."

GL: How do you feel about this fight not taking place for the WBO interim title?

Boris Greenberg: "Don King could have said he'd sue them and who wants to be sued. He only has 45 days off, but we want to fight now, we don't want to wait. This boxing business is for the fighters not the lawyers."

GL: Tony Thompson recently told me that he feels the WBO would have sanctioned a fight between he and Sultan for the interim title, but you guys didn't want to make the fight.

BG: "That's bullshit and I'll tell you why. When we tried to make interim title fight I saw him at Warrior's Boxing two days in a row and we went through all of the ranked fighters who were available and none of them wanted to take fight for $250,000. We wanted to make a deal. At this time Thompson was under contract to fight Timur. You know the boxing business, when you're training for a right handed fighter and then to switch to a southpaw on one month notice, it's not about being scared it's about being smart. I saw his fight with Timur and if Sultan had the right time to train for him it would be no problem at all. I promise after we beat Briggs or if he pulls out one more time, we take immediately fight with Anthony Thompson. I think that would be a very easy fight for Sultan."

M

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