By Rick Reeno
Promoter Dan Goossen contacted BoxingScene.com this morning to provide additional details into last year's negotiations for a rematch between Antonio Margarito and Paul Williams [promoted by Goossen], and the reason why Williams sat out until February of this year.
If you want to read both sides of the story:
Antonio Margarito and co-manager Sergio Diaz - https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=15431
George Peterson, manager/trainer of Paul Williams - https://www.boxingscene.com/?m=show&id=15464
This is where it gets a little tricky.
After Williams won a decision over Margarito last July, one of the first people to call him out was then IBF champion Kermit Cintron. It wasn't long before Goossen and Main Events [Cintron's promoters at the time], began talks for a potential unification bout. Cintron was originally scheduled to appear on the September 8 undercard to Vargas-Mayorga, taking a tune-up bout before a tentative return on December 1 on Showtime.
After Vargas was diagnosed with anemia, the entire event was postponed until November 23. Cintron won a tougher than expected fight with Jesse Feliciano, injured his hand and pulled out from the agreed upon unification bout with Williams, scheduled for a February date on HBO.
According to Goossen, when he learned that Cintron had pulled out, he contacted Margarito's promoter Bob Arum, who told him that he was not interested in making the rematch. More than likely, Arum at that point was already laying out the plans for a 2008 mid-year showdown between Margarito and Miguel Cotto. Goossen tried to secure other big names, like Zab Judah and Shane Mosley, but Carlos Quintana was the only fighter who agreed to fight Williams.
"Paul wanted to unify the titles. Cintron suffered a hand injury so I reached out to Bob Arum to ask about Margarito and he said 'no.' Eventually it went over to a February date with Quintana, but Paul wanted Margarito. Nobody wanted to step in the ring with Paul, not Margarito, not Zab Judah, Cintron or Shane Mosley," Goossen said.
"We've offered him a lot of money, $4 million dollars guaranteed with an upside. His biggest purse was made with us, $1.6 million for the fight with Paul. He only made $1.5 against Cotto. We are offereing him $4 million and he's probably going to make a quarter of that for a fight with [Joshua] Clottey. They can spin it any way they want, but they are taking a few millions less to fight Clottey. The same with Cintron, he fought Margarito for a few hundred thousand and there was a million on the table to fight Paul."
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