According to Boxingscene. :doh: Word is that DK was threatening to sue HBO if they went ahead with the fight.
I refuse to go to the BS site anymore, due to the fact that I get inundated with pop ups, but this is no surprise based on the reports coming from the Philboxing website. Since I haven't read the BS report, I'll post the Philboxing one. HBO CANCELS FEB 9 DIAZ-KATSIDIS DATE PhilBoxing.com Sun, 16 Dec 2007 Sources close to the situation have reported that HBO has scrapped the Feb. 9, 2008 date previously calendared for Juan Diaz vs Michael Katsidis. This came about as Don King Promotions had sent letters to HBO and organizers of the said bout about DKP's promotional hold of Diaz's next bout. The source further added that Joan Guzman had been offered to fight Katsidis on Feb 9 instead but Guzman refused saying that Feb 9 was too close for him to prepare for the bout. Guzman had reportedly balooned to 160 lbs barely a month after demolishing Humberto Soto in Atlantic City. This is the third time Guzman refused to face Katsidis for one reason or another. Golden Boy Promotions won the purse bid for the Diaz-Katsidis bout for $1.5M and both Diaz and Katsidis had reportedly signed the contract until Don King laid claim for the exclusive right to promote Diaz's next bout that jeopardize the Feb. 9 event. So despite pronouncements by Diaz's manager, Willie Savannah, to the contrary, the Feb. 9 Diaz-Katsidis fight is dead. In further development, the source added that HBO had calendared March 8, 2008 for Diaz-Katsidis, to give all parties -- Don King Promotions, Golden Boy Promotions, the Diaz and Katsidis camps -- time to talk and make the fight happen. Willie Savannah had been at odds with Don King and Savannah had openly stated that they are not going to renew King's contract with Diaz which ends on March 31 next year. King, meanwhile, had been using of what remains of his contract with Diaz to either extend, negotiate or make more money out of it. King had reportedly asked for $2M to let Diaz go free. There were talks that Golden Boy might just dig into its deep pockets to make Don King happy.
I don´t understand, who dumb of a manager/promoter/fighter you have to be to sign with Don King these days and especially sign his special contracts. If you get a fight per year, you can consider yourself lucky.
If you want the most money, you sign with King. If you get fucked, it's your own problem for not covering your ass. It's not like King pretends he'll look out for you.
I hope golden boy buys out diaz' contract...they sure know how to market and promote a young latino rising star like Juan, king is shot and only cares about his shot heavyweight and trinidad, someone should take his licence, or someone should take over the company's operations and leave him as the face of the company, nothing more.
They do?? I know they know how to promote themselves....themselves meaning..MAB, Hopkins,Mosley,DLH...etc...
Why would you consider King shot and who would you propose that can take over his operation? And why would you think that he would be content just being the face of the operation? He's been promoting since before most of the people on the forum were born, when I've read about him it was about what a workaholoic he is. Never heard anything about him having bad health. Checking out his website...he has tons of non-heavies. Like I said, if you don't protect yourself, King may screw you, but if you do take care of yourself, you know his pockets are deep and he'll probably do you right. There's nothing shot about him. While some really good promoters can't get a heavyweight champion to save their ass (Kushner comes to mind), King is constantly tripping over them. He likes money, but he also likes the sport. He's not leaving the sport until he has to. He's like Sheridan, that way.
willie savanah shouldn't complain since he was strictly looking out for himself when he took diaz to king. now he wants to cry ! he is supposed to have his client's-not his own- best interests at heart when making managerial decisions. how do u like them apples, stinger?
I do get a kick out of this coming down to March 31st if I read it right. Why not just hold off until April and screw King? If he gets paid $2M to let Juan go a couple of months early, he deserves to have his dick bronzed and put on display at the Smithsonian some day.
I wouldn't know, I havent spoken to Mr. Savannah in a very long time, since before the Freitas fight. I will say that IMO King is going to be the big loser here financially in the long run, however. It's amazing to look at this and other threads compared to the garbage some folks here were typing about Juan a year ago, I'll tell ya.