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By Thomas Gerbasi - The way Darryl Cunningham thought things were going to play out, last night was supposed to be when he fought the biggest fight of his life against Kelly Pavlik in Youngstown, Ohio.
That didn’t happen. And while the biggest story of the past week has been Pavlik’s sudden withdrawal from the Showtime-televised bout due to his unhappiness with his purse for this fight ($50,000) as well as for a future one with IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute ($1.35 million), the reality of the situation is that Pavlik, should he mend fences with promoter Top Rank, will likely get another big fight eventually and this little debacle will be forgotten.
But what about Cunningham? You don’t see too many big opportunities like this coming around for 36-year old prizefighters who have never been on the big stage before. So when the Detroit native got the bad news from his manager Carlos Llinas Tuesday morning, it was not only a shock, but a crushing blow to a good guy who was just waiting for his time to shine.
“I’ve got to tell you something,” Llinas said.
“He had a look on his face,” recalled Cunningham. “I said ‘What’s going on?’”
“Kelly Pavlik pulled out of the fight.”
“Quit playin’.”
An hour later, Cunningham was on the phone, recounting the worst moment of his professional life, but being more than gracious about it. [Click Here To Read More]
That didn’t happen. And while the biggest story of the past week has been Pavlik’s sudden withdrawal from the Showtime-televised bout due to his unhappiness with his purse for this fight ($50,000) as well as for a future one with IBF super middleweight champion Lucian Bute ($1.35 million), the reality of the situation is that Pavlik, should he mend fences with promoter Top Rank, will likely get another big fight eventually and this little debacle will be forgotten.
But what about Cunningham? You don’t see too many big opportunities like this coming around for 36-year old prizefighters who have never been on the big stage before. So when the Detroit native got the bad news from his manager Carlos Llinas Tuesday morning, it was not only a shock, but a crushing blow to a good guy who was just waiting for his time to shine.
“I’ve got to tell you something,” Llinas said.
“He had a look on his face,” recalled Cunningham. “I said ‘What’s going on?’”
“Kelly Pavlik pulled out of the fight.”
“Quit playin’.”
An hour later, Cunningham was on the phone, recounting the worst moment of his professional life, but being more than gracious about it. [Click Here To Read More]
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