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Spinks' fight falls through
By Tom Wheatley
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
08/15/2006
FILE PHOTO: Boxing promoter Don King bites his cigar as Cory Spinks squares off and challenges Floyd Mayweather Jr.
(GABRIEL B. TAIT/P-D)
A deal that is 99 percent done is not a done deal. Especially in boxing.
Cory Spinks just got a $2.5 million reminder of that hard lesson.
Less than a week after Spinks signed to fight unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr., and the International Boxing Federation approved the match, Mayweather has backed out.
Instead of fighting for Spinks' IBF junior-middleweight title, Mayweather will put his IBF welterweight title on the line against Carlos Baldomir, the lightly regarded World Boxing Council welterweight champ.
Kevin Cunningham, Spinks' trainer-manager, said Monday that he just learned Mayweather will fight Baldomir on Nov. 4 in Las Vegas. The bout will be on pay-per-view TV.
That was supposed to be the setup for Mayweather-Spinks, which Cunningham said was "99 percent done" after IBF approval Aug. 8.
"€Š'Mayweather ducks Spinks' should be the headline in St. Louis," Cunningham said. "Mayweather's manager, Dan Goossen, told me we had a deal. They sent the deal to (promoter) Don King. We signed the deal for less money than we wanted because Cory wanted to fight the so-called best fighter in the world."
Instead, Spinks' next fight probably will be an IBF-mandatory defense against 154-pound challenger Rodney Jones in November or December. The site is undetermined.
Spinks' top purse so far is $1.4 million. He would have made $2.5 million against Mayweather, Cunningham said, plus up to $1 million more from pay-per-view. But Mayweather never initialed the deal.
"When the IBF approved that deal, there was no way they should have let Mayweather back out," Cunningham said. "The IBF had set it up so that Cory's mandatory would step aside because Spinks-Mayweather would be a huge attraction.
"Mayweather used our deal to get the guy that he wanted for the price that he wanted. He's picking easy fights for less money. Baldomir, who's he? A club fighter from Argentina."
Baldomir, 35, is 43-9-6 with 12 knockouts. In a colossal upset in January, he narrowly won the WBC title from a lethargic Zab Judah, who had taken the title from Spinks.
To fight Spinks (35-3), Mayweather (36-0) would have had to come up to 154 pounds after fighting only once at 147.
For that risky move, Mayweather would have earned $6 million. Instead, he took $5 million for the safer Baldomir fight plus a pay-per-view stake, Cunningham said.
By Tom Wheatley
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
08/15/2006
FILE PHOTO: Boxing promoter Don King bites his cigar as Cory Spinks squares off and challenges Floyd Mayweather Jr.
(GABRIEL B. TAIT/P-D)
A deal that is 99 percent done is not a done deal. Especially in boxing.
Cory Spinks just got a $2.5 million reminder of that hard lesson.
Less than a week after Spinks signed to fight unbeaten Floyd Mayweather Jr., and the International Boxing Federation approved the match, Mayweather has backed out.
Instead of fighting for Spinks' IBF junior-middleweight title, Mayweather will put his IBF welterweight title on the line against Carlos Baldomir, the lightly regarded World Boxing Council welterweight champ.
Kevin Cunningham, Spinks' trainer-manager, said Monday that he just learned Mayweather will fight Baldomir on Nov. 4 in Las Vegas. The bout will be on pay-per-view TV.
That was supposed to be the setup for Mayweather-Spinks, which Cunningham said was "99 percent done" after IBF approval Aug. 8.
"€Š'Mayweather ducks Spinks' should be the headline in St. Louis," Cunningham said. "Mayweather's manager, Dan Goossen, told me we had a deal. They sent the deal to (promoter) Don King. We signed the deal for less money than we wanted because Cory wanted to fight the so-called best fighter in the world."
Instead, Spinks' next fight probably will be an IBF-mandatory defense against 154-pound challenger Rodney Jones in November or December. The site is undetermined.
Spinks' top purse so far is $1.4 million. He would have made $2.5 million against Mayweather, Cunningham said, plus up to $1 million more from pay-per-view. But Mayweather never initialed the deal.
"When the IBF approved that deal, there was no way they should have let Mayweather back out," Cunningham said. "The IBF had set it up so that Cory's mandatory would step aside because Spinks-Mayweather would be a huge attraction.
"Mayweather used our deal to get the guy that he wanted for the price that he wanted. He's picking easy fights for less money. Baldomir, who's he? A club fighter from Argentina."
Baldomir, 35, is 43-9-6 with 12 knockouts. In a colossal upset in January, he narrowly won the WBC title from a lethargic Zab Judah, who had taken the title from Spinks.
To fight Spinks (35-3), Mayweather (36-0) would have had to come up to 154 pounds after fighting only once at 147.
For that risky move, Mayweather would have earned $6 million. Instead, he took $5 million for the safer Baldomir fight plus a pay-per-view stake, Cunningham said.
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