By Steve Kim

On Thursday Jake Donovan talked about Vyachaslev Glazkov's decision

to bypass an opportunity to face WBC heavyweight belt-holder, Deontay Wilder, and instead take a crack at the IBF title (where he is the mandatory challenger). It was believed that Glazkov had signed onto face Wilder weeks ago for a January 16th bout at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn,  New York.

Kathy Duva, the head of Main Events - who promotes Glazkov - explained:

"What happened was that I thought I had a deal six weeks ago. We didn't get a contract, it kept dragging out. 'You'll have it soon, you'll have it soon,' and I finally got a contract two weeks ago and the deal was different to what I agreed to and I'm told I have to give options to Lou DiBella and I think they were very egregious terms and I protested and we were negotiating and the Tyson Fury fight (versus Wladimir Klitschko) was just a few days away and at that point I decided they didn't push, so I didn't push and I wanted to see what was going to happen because I had always felt that, as crazy as it sounds, that Tyson had a great chance to beat Klitschko because of his size and because of his courage."

Last weekend Fury shocked the world by decisively beating Klitschko for his heavyweight titles in Germany.

"When that happened, I finally heard Monday, it was, 'Well, we're going to try to help you. We'll give you a little better deal, lets get it done' and at that point I'm thinking the fight is now six-and-a-half weeks away. My fighter is still not mentally preparing for this fight, at all, because one day it's on, the next day it's off. Then we have a contract, then we don't have a contract. I talked to Egis (Klimas, who manages Glazkovz) and now we have a new opportunity," explained Duva, who's fighter now had some options.

"One Monday I considered some other terms that were offered. I said I would consider them. By Tuesday we found out that the IBF was going to stand up and enforce their mandatory - which I didn't know on Monday - and at that point I said, 'I think we'd rather go in the other direction.' So then they came back last night with a deal I would've been very happy to sign two weeks ago. If they put that contract in front of me two weeks ago, I would've signed it. But they didn't.

"So we would rather give our fighter time to prepare, we'd rather not have to give other people options on him when he won the title and we get both those things with the IBF."

Duva says she tried to make a deal with Fury's promoter, Mike Hennessey, where they would allow Fury to take the rematch with Klitschko, as long as there was a deal in place to have him face Glazkov next. The proposal was rejected.

There is a very good chance that Glazkov will have to fight for a vacant title.

To which Duva states: - "We'd rather fight the defending champion but the fact is my guy won the IBF mandatory position last March, he's been waiting. Tyson got his title by enforcing his mandatory. Tyson was a mandatory challenger, he didn't have to give a rematch. But he made a choice that the rematch was more important to him than the title, which is a perfectly fine choice.'

"But there are great options out there for my fighter if he wins. We feel very confident that he'll win and when that happens we'll be free to negotiate with everyone and I'm completely confident and so is he and so is Egis that things will work out very well for Glazkov."

Duva added - "He wont do any worse than he would've done if he fought Wilder. I might have, but at some point I have to draw the line and say,' I don't like being kept up and down on the yo-yo like this. I don't like being dictated to, I don't like deals changing after they've been agreed upon.' And frankly with all the pressure they should've recognized was on them over the weekend when Fury won, still on Monday morning, there was still no contract presented to me under terms that were expected.

"At some point you've gone too far and if you're going to play games you've got to play them smarter."

Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.