Who remembers Matt Korobov?

[lopetego]

I remember him as "the man that Quillin foolishly ducked"

[Bardamu]

False. It went to a purse bid, Al Haymon bid something like 2.5Mil and they were out-bid by Roc Nation who submitted something upwards of 3Mil.

He was then advised not to take it because of the beef/history between Haymon and Jay-Z's wife, and was paid a lump of cash by Al Haymon on the side to do so.

Oh ho, you might be right. Though, the winning bid was for just a shade under $2 million. Which according to everyone boxing was a massive overbid. Which it really is. Neither Quillin nor Korobov had any name recognition and neither had some superb resume as a pro.

Either way, I was still correct in that Quillin vacated a belt to avoid Korobov. It might not have been because he feared a loss (but then again, that may have played a role in it too), but he vacated his title to not fight him.

Upon further analysis though, I agree with you that it was probably because of the Haymon-Beyoncé beef. Thank you for bringing that to my intention. And here is some green for your knowledge.

[Citizen Koba]

I was looking at Korobovs amateur record, its odd because in the amateurs he seemed to be stopping just about everybody.

He has a really unusual amount of stoppage wins at elite level, you'd of thought going off by that he could punch.

He had a lovely fluid style as an am but seemed to bulk up and become really stiff as a pro... he always looked best in the pro ranks when he just tried to box though... when he started pushing for the KO (which he probably thought was a necessary selling point) he tended to get sloppy and leave himself vulnerable. With all that said he's never been outboxed as a pro or even close - he was handily ahead of Lee at the time of the stoppage and Lee ain't a terrible boxer himself. I'd heard rumours of some kind of 'mental' problem a few years back, but reading between the lines it seems like maybe he was coming into fights too tense and burning too much energy... which is kinda how he often looked in the pro ranks actually. Stiff, tense, even when he was outboxing guys.

Real shame he couldn't transition well, but I'd guess he could still give most of the guys a 160 - 168 a boxing lesson.