By Rick Reeno
The Australian press is going berserk over comments made by Main Events with respect to a possible meeting between Arturo Gatti and Kostya Tszyu in a recent interview conducted by Los Angeles press writer Peter Mitchell. Main Events are the promoters of Arturo Gatti.
When posed the question regarding the chances of Tszyu-Gatti coming off, Main Events' Chief Executive Officer Kathy Duva stated;
"Not in my lifetime"
When she was asked about Gatti accepting the recent challenge by Tszyu, she simply replied;
"No"
Main Events claims that the key issue in making this fight happen is the same key issue I told everyone about two days ago, exclusive network contracts.
"Gatti has a contract with HBO and Kostya has a contract with Showtime, seeing how Gatti is the poster boy for HBO I can't see how that fight could ever happen." said Duva
Carl Moretti, who is the matchmaker for Main Events, basically had the same view point as Kathy Duva.
"How could he fight Kostya if he has a deal with HBO and Kostya has a deal with Showtime?" said Moretti
Main Events was involved the last time Showtime and HBO had their contracted fighters face each other, back in 2002 when Lennox Lewis (under contract with HBO) fought Mike Tyson (under contract with Showtime). Main Events were the American promoters of Lennox Lewis and said that the experience was so "painful", that they will never involve themselves in a network collaboration again. Keep in mind that Tyson-Lewis is the highest grossing pay per view event of all time.
"Having been involved in that situation I would say I don't think there is enough money that would make me do that again. I've got to think they'd be feeling the same way over at HBO and Showtime." said Duva
Moretti added some insult as he said Arturo did not watch the Tszyu-Mitchell bout because he was "not concerned with the result".
"I don't think Gatti saw the fight. He was traveling to training camp on Saturday and I know for a fact he doesn't have Showtime."
Although the promoters of Gatti say the fight wont happen, they mentioned that Arturo does want to fight Tszyu.
"He'd love to (fight Tszyu), Arturo also wants to fight Leija. He wants to fight (Floyd) Mayweather. He wants to fight Kostya Tszyu. He doesn't care who. He'll fight anyone, but if someone has a signed deal with one network and the other guy has a signed deal with another network, it's somewhat difficult regardless of who they are to make that fight." said Moretti
Main Events said that the best options for Tszyu are Ricky Hatton and Vivian Harris. They ruled out Top Rank promoted Floyd Mayweather as he is also an HBO fighter.
Main Events, also the promoters of Vivian Harris, said that they would love to match Harris against Tszyu. This fights does have an obstacle though, Tszyu is not interested in Harris.
"If you want to look at a fight between Kostya Tszyu and Vivian Harris, a natural place for it is New York City. Vivian is from New York City and the New York has a huge Russian population to support Kostya." said Moretti.
