"If BS were poetry his name wouldn't be Bernard, it would be William, as in Shakespeare!
GL: Can you give us some thoughts on Oleg's victory over Peter Ohkello and fill us in on how he looked since most of us were unable to watch the fight? "Let me give you some background information. It was a sellout with 15,000 plus people. It was a huge gross, the tickets except for the first row, which I think they charged $5000. Then they went on down to $2500 and so on all the way down to $25 but the VIP tickets made up 80% of the gross. The fight was really interesting he won a shutout plus on two of the cards because he scored a knockdown in round ten. Ohkello was real courageous and then when he realized Maskaev's punching power he got into a survival mode after three or four rounds. It was a survival mode that Oleg had to be careful because he would jump in with strong shots every now and then. It was interesting even though it was won by a big margin. Ohkello is a tough kid with a terrific chin, but when he realized he couldn't win he went into a survival mode. I would say it was a good fight and it's going to be shown in its entirity on Fox Sports Net on Monday. It's going to be on the Best Damn Sports Show Period, I'm not sure about the exact time but that information will be out shortly. It was a tremendous experience, the second highest political person from Russia was there, the who's who of Russian athletics were there, it was a historic event and I got to tell you it won't be the last.
"The crowd was wildly enthusiastic and it was a great experience to watch Oleg greeted like a matinee idol. It was just an incredible, incredible experience. It was a historic event far more significant than a boxing match."
GL: We all know that Peter-Toney II is being fought as an eliminator for the right to fight Oleg. At the same time you have Bernard Hopkins calling Oleg out...
Dennis Rappaport: (cutting in) "You're missing the real fight, you're missing the mark. The whole thing with Hopkins I haven't taken seriously for a while. I have a lot of respect for Bernard as a fighter but when it comes to doing business with him if BS was poetry his name wouldn't be Bernard, it would be William as in Shakespeare. In other words, I don't think it was ever real and I haven't really heard anything from his people in over a month. I did have a conversation with a sincere guy by the name of Schaefer from Golden Boy. When it became clear that Bernard wanted the majority of the money I told them they were forgetting who the champion was so forget it. I don't know how serious Schaefer thought Hopkins was serious about it because the number he was asking for is insane. That's just Hopkins making noise.
GL: I was going to finish my previous question by mentioning a Klitschko unification is that the right fight?
DR: "Yep. What we're coming down is what the wBC wants to do. It's subject to the WBC sanctioning. If I may take a couple of minutes, I'd like you to tell me where my thinking is inaccurate. The mandatory initiated by Toney having a draw with Rahman, I believe Rahman won the fight and I know most people believe that Rahman won the fight. He was made the mandatory and was supposed to fight the winner of Rahman and Maskaev. HE CHOSE, let me empasis this again, HE CHOSE to make himself unavailable by accepting a significant payday to fight Samuel Peter. When Maskaev was supposed to be fighting Rahman I talked to Sulaiman about taking a stay busy fight and he told me that if I took a fight I could put myself in a precarious position because I wouldn't be available and we decided not fight. Toney on the other hand, decided to take a payday and fight Samuel Peter, making himself unavailable. If he hadn't done thing we would have been fighting Toney in December instead of Ohkello. He fights Peter and it's a close fight and they order a rematch. Toney came in looking like the Pillbury doughboy, however put their weights aside, the WBC orders a rematch. A day after our fight neither guy is available because of the rematch, on top of that everyone wants heavyweight unification. The value of the heavyweight division has been diminished because the championships are fragmented. Fans and media want unification for clarification. We're ready to put it on the line and Klitschko has been pursuing us. Certainly the winner of Klitschko-Maskaev fight would be recognized as the heavyweight champion. With all due respect to Briggs who fought twelve seconds per round and nobody knows Valuev's name, they just call him the giant. Here we have an opportunity to do something that hasn't been done, which is unify the heavyweight titles and this is something that can be done, I guess because Don King is not involved, which brings up a lot of other questions, but that's another story. Whoever wins the Peter fight, King doesn't lose he wins, because now he has a piece of both guys."
"Now the WBC has to make a decision. Let's look at it objectively. What would benefit boxing? Having a unified champion someone the public can recognize. The fight would be a huge fight and the winner would stipulate that they would fight the winner of Peter and Toney and that would only make them more money when they got the fight. When you speak about rules, neither guy is available until after January 6, that's if the get out of the fight without injury. Then the WBC would offer 30 negotiation period and order a purse-bid for mid-February with the fight to happen three months later. Within another couple of months they could have a unification bout. The whole thing it's betrays logic and rational thinking to see why they wouldn't allow it. The WBC needs to look at this from the standpoint of what's better for boxing. Klitschko already beat Peter and forget about the steroids, Toney got a gift draw to Rahman and then lost to Peter, why should either one of these guys be more important than the unification that the heavyweight division needs."
GL: So if the WBC approves the unification bout are the Klitschko people on board to make the fight happen?
DR: "That's 100% correct. It would be on HBO, we're looking at April 21, 2007 and the probable likelihood is that the fight takes place in Moscow. The two guys with the premiere titles, Klitschko and Maskaev are independent of King therefore a unification bout can take place."
M
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