By Rick Reeno

On Thursday, BoxingScene.com ran an interview with former welterweight champion Joshua Clottey, who explained his decision to turn down an offer of $650,000 to fight Paul Williams on December 5.  According to Clottey, he needed a few more weeks to train. But, at the same time he made it clear that an offer of $650K is not enough to close the deal - unless the fight is pushed back to a later date.  Clottey cited a few of his personal concerns, including several days of absence from the gym.  He appeared to be concerned that his new trainer had already flown back to Africa.

Williams reached out to BoxingScene.com to set the record straight. He doesn’t buy any of Clottey’s concerns, or as Williams calls them - “excuses.” Clottey, on a number of occasions, has called Williams out. And it’s not the first time for Williams and Clottey to trade verbal blows on BoxingScene. Williams wants Clottey to “stop lying to the people.“  Clottey was scheduled to fight Carlos Quintana on the undercard of Williams-Pavlik. He lost the co-feature opportunity when Pavlik withdrew from the fight and Williams’ promoter Dan Goossen took full control of the HBO date [12/5].

“I just want to tell him 'don't be lying to the people by saying things and they’re not true.’ If you break it down, people who really know about boxing know that he was in training for the [Carlos] Quintana fight. He was fighting Quintana on the same card with me and Kelly [Pavlik]. Now he's out of shape because he didn't train for five days? He was training the whole time. The bottom line is - he's scared. He's the same as Kelly, he doesn't want to fight me,” Williams said.

“He talks all this mess about me all the time in all of these internet interviews. He says I'm a weak welterweight and he wants to fight me but when the opportunity comes, and he can make three times more [money] than he's ever made - he folds up like a tent. It don't take much to get his trainer back and I know people in the gym who told me he's been training the whole time. When you catch someone in a lie you want to bring to someone's attention.”

With the loss of Pavlik, Williams’ team has been trying to line up a new opponent. Over the last year they tried for several names like Shane Mosley and Kermit Cintron. Williams has no beef with Mosley or Cintron because they simply turned him down. In Clottey’s case, Williams is aggravated because of the reasons being presented. 

“I can at least appreciate Mosley and Cintron because they flat out said no. They didn't do all of these cat and mouse game. They didn't do all of that talk like Clottey. When it gets down to business, he froze up like a popsicle. He's trying to sell all of those wolf tickets on the internet. He likes to do all of that internet talk because on the internet it's safe because nobody is throwing punches at you. Because in the ring my left hand would have been hitting his mouth all night,” William said.

“He still can’t get over his hump. He was doing well against Margarito and then he started crying about his little finger, that he hurt his little hand. That shows you right there he don't got no heart. He was doing well against Cotto and then he faded out. All you have to do is spank that butt and he'll head back to Ghana crying.  He can make three times more than he ever made and buy all of the coconut rum he wants with that. It comes down to how much heart and how much balls they got and whether they fold and as you can see they already folded. He likes to do that web talking. When it comes to getting in the ring - he gets the hush mouth.  He needs to stop telling them lies and selling those wolf tickets on the internet. He only wants to fight on the internet because he's  scared - flat out scared. “

Williams is frustrated. He says the sport of boxing is being affected in a negative way when the big names refuse to fight each other.  He doesn’t understand why a fighter like Shane Mosley wasted away several months chasing a fight with Manny Pacquiao when there was little chance of getting that fight. And at the same time Mosley refused other offers that were sitting on the table.

“Like Shane Mosley. He’ll go in the ring and call out Floyd Mayweather but when someone calls him out - he don’t want to fight. I don’t know why these guys are still in the game if they don’t want to fight nobody. They are willing to fight for peanuts against someone safe, that they know they can beat. What these guys do, like Kelly Pavlik and Clottey, it's bad for boxing. They build themselves up but then when it comes down to getting in the ring - they don't want to fight," Williams said.

His next opponent is up in the air. He doesn’t know whether the fight will be at 160-pounds, 154 or elsewhere. He, along with his team, hope to finalize an opponent in the next few days.

“It's frustrating because you don't what don't know what weight to stay comfortable at. We're going up and then we're going down. We don't know what style to train for. It throws you off your game a little bit,” Williams said.