Friday, January 16, 2009

Lou Dibella on Williams/Wright Fight

Promoter Lou Dibella speaking on promoting boxing's young fighters:

“It’s one of the reasons I’m not a big proponent of the Paul Williams-Winky Wright fight. You have Paul Williams again extending himself to fight a bigger guy, but an old guy who should frankly be gone and nobody really cares about anyway. And as great as Bernard Hopkins is, he’s 44 bleeping years old. His beating Kelly Pavlik didn’t do anything positive for the sport. What we need to do is build young stars.”

-TheSweetScience.com

Dibella makes a good point. If PW were to lose this fight to Winky, it would'nt be good for the sport of boxing. Young lions like Paul Williams, Kelly Pavlik and Chad Dawson to name a few shouldn't have to search out and "extend themselves" to get the big fights. Boxing needs to make sure that the young up and comers have the fights coming to them as opposed the other way around, which doesn't seem to happen often enough. When Pavlik originally accepted the Hopkins fight he expressed his dissatisfaction with the fight, saying it was "not one of his top choices". In the end, Pavlik's inability to get a top fight in his own division cost him.

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