By Mark Vester
It appears that Charles Clifford, the Minister of Tourism for the Cayman Islands, has pulled a big swerve on promoter Gary Shaw and WBC junior middleweight champion Vernon Forrest. Shaw had been planning to stage a big event in the Caymans on April 25 with Forrest defending his title against hometown hero Charles Whittaker. Showtime was going to televise the event. Some wondered why Forrest would go for the Whittaker fight when a mandatory was long overdue to interim-champ Sergio Martinez. It may have something to do with the price tag of $1.85 million for the fight.
On February 18, Clifford sent an email to Shaw that confirmed the event was going to take place.
“It would appear that the Department of Tourism is now satisfied that we can proceed in principle with planning for this event at the agreed sum of US$1.35M (plus the US$500K in on island costs which will be our responsibility) while the formal written agreement is being finalised. I expect to be in a position to formally confirm this by noon tomorrow.”
Two days later, on February 20, Clifford sent another email stating that a decision was made, after a cabinet meeting, to cancel the planned event. Obviously Shaw was outraged with the news.
“This appears to have been a masquerade by the minister,” Shaw told CNS. “We are very disappointed that after we met with every request and reduced the cost of staging this world championship fight, the minister has said there is no money. What changed in two days? I believe he has been disingenuous about this and in the end it is Charles Whittaker who will suffer because of this decision. The minister really has done his countryman Charles Whittaker a serious disservice. We even brought the date forward on this fight so it would happened before your country’s elections in May, because the Minister asked us to do that,” he said.
Whittaker's team had claimed that the WBC had sanctioned their title opportunity. BoxingScene.com reported last week that the WBC was unwilling to sanction any opponent [for Forrest] other than Sergio Martinez. A March purse bid for Forrest-Martinez has been scheduled by the sanctioning body.
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