Clinton Woods will know in the next few days when and where his IBF light heavyweight title defense against Glen Johnson will take place.
No.1 contender Johnson’s promoters Warrior Boxing, in association with Sports Network, won the purse bid to stage the fight with a bid of $505,000. Fight Academy bid $457,000. The fight will almost certainly take place in early September.
Woods, though, doesn’t care where the fight takes place.
He said : “Ever since I won the title (in February 2005) I’ve said that I won’t consider myself the true champion until I’ve got my win back of Glen Johnson and now I’ve got that chance. I don’t care where I fight him, it could be on a World Wrestling Federation card all I care, as long as I get my chance to knock Glen Johnson out.”
Sheffield box-puncher Woods is 0-1-1 against the Jamaican born ‘Road Warrior’ but warned: “Johnson will have to change his name to ‘Road Kill’ or become a ‘Road Sweeper’ after this fight. It won’t last eight rounds, I promise. I’m already in training for him, I’ve never wanted to win anything as much as I want to win this fight.”
Fight Academy promoter Dennis Hobson reacted to the purse bid result.
Hobson said: “We’d have liked to have put the fight on one of our shows, of course, but these things can happen with purse bids. Frank Warren lost a Joe Calzaghe purse bid to Klaus-Peter Kohl last summer and Calzaghe had to go fight Mario Veit in Germany, but somehow, we all managed to get on with our lives.
“I’m satisfied that I did my job as Clinton’s promoter by forcing the price up to $500,000 and getting Clinton a very good pay day for the fight that he wanted more than anything. And just for the record our bid was $300,000 bigger than the one we won the right to stage and second fight with, so no-one can accuse us of not putting all our efforts into getting this fight.”
Hobson added: “Frank Warren probably wants Johnson to win so he can try and make the (Johnson v) Calzaghe fight for the billionth time - but you’d have thought by now that he would have realised Calzaghe wants no part of Johnson or Woods and would just pull out with a flimsy excuse like a broken eyelash or claim his dog has ate his gunshield.
“Warren has a history of rooting against British fighters - he was in the ring with Oliver McCall when he knocked out Lennox Lewis laughing his head off. I‘m just glad he went into boxing and not soccer, you wouldn‘t want someone so unpatriotic involved with the English World Cup team.”
