The promoter of WBC heavyweight champion of the world, Oleg Maskaev of Russia, has indicated it believes that it should be awarded the promotional rights to his upcoming fight against mandatory challenger Samuel Peter of Nigeria, which would render bout contracts presented by Don King Productions invalid. http://fightbeat.com/news_details.php?NW=2044 - FULL STORY
Here's the other side of the argument, from Dennis Rappaport: Fightnews: Maskaev-Peter Saga Continues! July 13, 2007 By Matt Richardson And the controversy continues. Just when it appeared that WBC Heavyweight champion Oleg Maskaev would finally be defending his title against number-one ranked Samuel Peter, the negotiations for the proposed October 6th NYC showdown hit yet another snag. According to a statement issued by the WBC on Wednesday, since "Maskaev of Russia, has refused, through his representative, to sign the contract to fight mandatory challenger Samuel Peter of Nigeria, the President of the African Boxing Union, Houcine Houichi, has sent a recommendation for the WBC to not only continue in court on the case presented by the champion’s representative, but to also unfreeze the heavyweight championship by immediately ordering an interim heavyweight world championship between Samuel Peter and the highest rated available contender in the WBC ratings, according to the WBC rules." The always loquacious Dennis Rappaport (Maskaev's promoter) however begs to differ with the organizations interpretation of events. According to Rappaport, Don King Promotions should never have been allowed to promote the proposed fight to begin with. King was granted the opportunity to promote the fight when Duva Boxing defaulted on their winning May 7th purse bid. "Duva's check bounced like a rubber ball. It's still bouncing," said Rappaport. King and Duva both own a share of the promotional rights to Peter, thus eliminating King's eligibility to take place in the purse bid to begin with. According to Rappaport, WBC President Jose Sulaiman assured him that due to the commonality of both promoters interest in Peter, the lower bid would be dropped. But King's purse bid never was and his opportunity to promote the fight was allowed, leaving the third highest bidder (Rappaport) out of the loop. King was then allegedly supposed to have sent the fight contract to Rappaport on July 5th but the deadline came and went and Rappaport received nothing.King claimed to have had the wrong e-mail address to contact Rappaport to which Rappaport reacted with disbelief. By the time Rappaport received a contract earlier this week the deadline had passed meaning King had defaulted and that Rappaport should then be allowed to promote the fight. Plus, Rappaport said, the contract had contingencies in it. "You can't have contingencies subject to television," the promoter said. However, the WBC has yet to confirm or deny Rappaport's allegations that he should now become the lead promoter for the event. Until the promotional matter is sorted out the champion will not sign a contract. "I will not allow them to abuse Oleg Maskaev," said Rappaport. "They're not dealing with the weak and meek. I'm not going to let him (Maskaev) be used and abused and disrespected by the WBC." Rappaport meanwhile, also has an amended (as of July 2nd) lawsuit pending against the organization regarding a variety of topics not the least of which is the fact that Maskaev will not be receiving the traditional 70 percent afforded the champion in defense of the title. Instead Maskaev will take just 55 percent of the share while Peter will take 45. Rappaport takes exception to this. "This is only done when the challenger is a former champion with extraordinary marquee value," he said. Rappaport is also upset that the WBC did not go public with a vote they took earlier this year in which by a 24-8 margin the organization overwhelmingly voted for Maskaev to skip over Peter for a direct fight with former champ Vitali Klitschko. Even if the Maskaev-Peter fight comes off in October, both men will have been inactive for significant time periods. The 38-year old Maskaev, 34-5, 26 KO's last fought in December 2006. The 26-year old Peter, 28-1, 22 KO's hasn't seen action since the first week of this year. The bottom line though is that the Maskaev-Peter fight (an important fight in clarifying the state of the heavyweight division) is in limbo once again. "This is horse s**t because we're waiting for the WBC to respond if King is in default," Rappaport said. "Who has the right to promote the fight?"
You know, I don't even care if those two ever fight at this point. This is a lot of bullshit Peter has had to go through just to thrash Oleg when they do finally meet. They should just hand the belt over to Peter now.
I agree. Why even have this fight at all? Sure I would enjoy seeing Maskaev get handled in 2 rounds, but if it's going to be all this trouble, Maskaev should just deliver his belt to Peter via FedEx.
it's quite obvious that maskaev is trying to pull a mid 90s george foreman. he'll probably vacate the title and fight softies since there's no sense of getting his head knocked off by a much younger guy. at his age, i doubt he cares about any sort of heavyweight supremacy nor is he expecting some sort of a reign as a champion. he might as well vacate the title and fight the winner of vitali/mccline and cash the fuck out.
Nah Maskaev will fight Vitali and then the WBC will order the winner to face Peter/TBA.If TBA turns out to be Virchis, that while be a heck of a fight. They´ll throw bombs till one goes down. It´s actually a better fight than Peter/Maskaev.
