Dibella elaborates on why Martinez isn't fighting Sturm, Geale, and Pirog

We’ve talked to Felix Sturm’s people; they couldn’t do the fight in the fall because of their commitment to German TV but they can come to America in his fight after next. Not after his fight against Matthew Macklin- which is in a few weeks- but he has to do one more fight in Germany and by next year, he can come here. Frankly, we made another offer to- at HBO’s request- to Daniel Geale, who frankly, was another fighter that Sergio wanted to fight to, in effect, unify- even though he doesn’t technically have the ’BC belt, we don’t acknowledge Chavez Jr. as champion- and we tried to make the deal with Geale but Daniel wants to make the first defense of his title in Australia against somebody of less danger than Sergio before he takes on a challenge like Sergio, which I can understand. But right now, it’s looking more and more like Barker and I hope to have that wrapped up with HBO by tomorrow. I mean, there’s a lot of factors; he doesn’t bring one dollar to the table, none, zero. Two, there’s a certain point in time where a fighter has a right to say, ’I want to fight this guy.’ has fought everyone that’s been put in front of him and not been given any type of ability to select and he really doesn’t want to fight for the WBO, period. He thinks what happened with his title getting stripped, they didn’t give him a chance to make a decision to stay at ’60 or ’54 and they stripped it, frankly, because they thought they were going to hand it to Danny Jacobs. And lots of other new info regarding Martinez' future. http://www.maxboxing.com/news/promo-lead/dibella-re-ups-martinez

Comments (20)

DoktorSleepless

Martinez should just move to Canada or Mexico and become like an adopted son. They love their fighters over there. If it worked for Bute, why not Martinez?

14y ago

intoccabile

Hilarious stuff from dibella, The same thing he says a out pirog is the same thing tip rank says about Sergio. Excuse me mr dibella, exactly where is Sergio bringing in any money? He's quite large in mexico right now, not just his home country. Plus he's got a nice buzz in the states. I know SEVERAL casuals who know who martinez is. It's funny how they refer to him. " That pretty guy " ? Seriously? No No Homo? LOL. But he's been doing mexican television and is being received extremely well over there. Sergio brings money

14y ago

DoktorSleepless

there’s a certain point in time where a fighter has a right to say, ’I want to fight this guy.’ has fought everyone that’s been put in front of him and not been given any type of ability to select translation.........martinez has reached that point in time where he is now a cherry picker. congrats sergio! It's hard to accuse a guy of cherry picking when he's trying to get a fight with the next two best middleweights. Between Pirog and Barker, I don't see THAT big of a difference in talent to start using the "c" word.

14y ago

daggum

14y ago

DoktorSleepless

wow really can't believe you're trying to justify this! The WBC are some crooks and they did martinez dirty as fuck. I blame HBO for not letting Martinez fight his mandatory more than I blame WBC. I was also sympathizing with Zbik more than with the WBC. Put yourself in Zbik's position. Are you supposed to just be okay with being a mandatory forever and never getting a title shot just because HBO refused to put you on tv? Is that fair? Zbik was the interim WBC middleweight champion for two straight years. He earned a shot at the WBC belt. In this point of view, do I think it was correct for the WBC to impose Zbik on Martinez(otherwise lose the belt)? Yes. Do I think the WBC is being hypocritical for not being loose with the rules as they would with other fighters? Yes. I don't want look like I'm defending the WBC, but in an ideal world where sanctioning bodies were always strict with the rules, this would have been the correct thing to do on WBC's part. But I'm not delusional and I do understand the the WBC did what it did for dirty reasons.

14y ago

Pullcounter7451

Who the fukk is geale and why is he a viable fight and not pirog? they need to stop ducking him.

14y ago

chav

th Dibella sounds like arum with all the diarrhea coming out of his mouth. Barker is going to get waxed easily by Martinez, mid rounds stoppage, so trying to make the Barker fight something it isn't doesnt wash with me

14y ago

Sparked_1985

DiBella is full of sh!t Barker is not a big name in the UK he'll bring 15 people not 1,500. And yes, the WBC FORCED Martinez to vacate his 154 pound belt. The told him (you can look this up, their public letter was posted by boxing websites including B.S): "This is not the henry armstrong era, you can only be a champion in one weight class, not two, choose one." Martinez then goes ahead and vacates the 154 WBC belt and decided to keep the 160 pound belt. How does the WBC treat him? By taking it away and giving him the "diamond belt" which is worth cat piss and of course they basically hand it over to chavez jr. for free. They then promise Martinez that he can get a crack at Chavez any times he elects to, martinez elects to fight him immediately and the WBC tell him "not now." So yeah, the WBC has been f@cking him in the ass, I don't know why he remains loyal to them He actually is a decent ticket-seller. He takes advantage of the football angle like Ricky Hatton but on a much smaller scale. He's a Chelsea fan. Wears blue shorts with crest on them. They flyer all his fights at the football matches and so on. But watching a fighter 5 miles down the road, and thousands of miles overseas are two different things.

14y ago

Bushbaby

Martinez should indeed fight Pirog.

14y ago

SCtrojansbaby

Why is Pirog any better then Barker?

14y ago

DoktorSleepless

And yes, the WBC FORCED Martinez to vacate his 154 pound belt. The told him (you can look this up, their public letter was posted by boxing websites including B.S): "This is not the henry armstrong era, you can only be a champion in one weight class, not two, choose one." Martinez then goes ahead and vacates the 154 WBC belt and decided to keep the 160 pound belt. I really see nothing wrong with this rule. Martinez having belts in two divisions doesn't make sense and it isn't fair to the other fighters who want a shot at the 154 belt, but can't because Martinez is only fighting at 160. By taking it away and giving him the "diamond belt" which is worth cat piss and of course they basically hand it over to chavez jr. for free. They then promise Martinez that he can get a crack at Chavez any times he elects to, martinez elects to fight him immediately and the WBC tell him "not now." So yeah, the WBC has been f@cking him in the ass, I don't know why he remains loyal to them The WBC did give Martinez his first world belt, so I could kind of see why he's loyal to them. It's not like he was stripped of the 160 belt immediately after the Pavlik fight. They even let Martinez have a voluntary defense against Williams. I guess it's only fair they let Chavez have one too. I'll reserve judgement until after Chavez has his first defense and see how it works out. If Martinez is still a lapdog to the WBC after he isn't given a shot Chavez next year, I'll start to call stupidity on Martinez' part.

14y ago

badnewsbrown

fight pirog nobody wanna see the other guys fight

14y ago

2501

Is Barker REALLY that known in the UK?

14y ago

mediumdeek

I dont see any harm in him fighting my fellow Brit. Sergio has fought big names recently and he deserves an easy fight for once. All boxers should be allowed one easy fight, at least FFS. You can't fight all the big names one after another after another after.............

14y ago

AddiX

Hilarious stuff from dibella, The same thing he says a out pirog is the same thing tip rank says about Sergio. Excuse me mr dibella, exactly where is Sergio bringing in any money?

14y ago

DoktorSleepless

haha it's comedy seeing martinez fans justify Barker over Pirog! oh that British money! Martinez will be a huge star in the UK! Which will set up a mega fight in England against who exactly?? oh right, no one! Martinez wants big US fights, he wants big names in the US. Barker doesn't bring any of that and the HBO ratings will be piss poor. At least Pirog has been on HBO and scored a stunning KO and has a belt which would make it a unification fight. But it's cool martinez can continue being a slave to the WBC which obviously treat him so wonderfully, stripping him of two belts already. DiBella isn't bringing that up is he? Dibella said Barker would bring over 1,500 fans from the UK to the US to buy tickets, which is hilarious because Barker can't even get 1,500 people to follow him on twitter.

14y ago

DoktorSleepless

I am a Sergio fan and undestand all of that but frankly it is a bit hypocritical that Sergio doesn't want to fight for the WBO because they stripped him to give the title for the Pirog- Jacobs winner but he does want to fight for the WBC who did the same thing for Chavez Jr. - Zbik. I mean honestly the cases are the same except Pirog doesn't bring money and Chavez Jr. does. He wasn't stripped from the WBC belt. He vacated it because HBO rejected the fight. I would blame HBO more than the WBC, unless you think HBO and WBC conspired with each other. Sergio Martinez went through a similar thing as Zbik when Vernon Forrest refused to give him a fight even though he was his mandatory. So Martinez probably sympathized with Zbik seeing how he would be another guy who wouldn't get a title shot despite being a mandatory. In addition, Martinez has stated (even before vacating) that he wanted to keep the WBC belt specifically for sentimental value because its the same belt Carlos Manzon held.

14y ago

PR_Boxer

14y ago

paulf

I can dig it. Why should Martinez fight a no-name guy for a title that he already won? If he has to fight a no-name, it should one that gets him a decent HBO check.

14y ago

paypayvay

wat money is barker bringing to the table too? british tv money a name in england , a good market for boxing

14y ago