Boxing

Hennessy responds to Sports Network

02.05 - Mick Hennessy has responded in no uncertain terms to Frank Warren’s latest comments about a potential showdown between Howard Eastman and Joe Calzaghe and in the process has suggested that the rights for the contest be decided by both promoters placing bids in sealed envelopes to be opened at a press conference.

 

“I have come to expect the kind of press release that Warren sent out last week,” began Hennessy. “Aside from being a completely transparent attempt to grab cheap headlines it was childish, badly written and full of jumped-up rhetoric.

 

“As usual it ignores the bare facts of the situation and contains his customary derogatory remarks about fighters.  Not only does he refer to Howard as ‘The Duck,’ but he also insults trainer Robert McCracken, a former world-class operator who did things the traditional way.

 

“Strangely, he tried to sign them both twice, but was turned down as he seemingly often is by experienced boxers.

 

“This can only be the sour grapes syndrome. The same one he displayed towards Audley Harrison after he decided not to sign with Sports Network.”

 

He added: “It is hard to know where to start when addressing the rest of his ramblings, but I see it as a necessary process as I want to make this fight happen.”

 

£100,000: a bumper offer?

 

“Warren believes that his £100,000 offer to Howard Eastman to box Joe Calzaghe is fair given that Howard is in the ‘twilight of his career’ and ‘unknown outside of the UK.’ Let’s get a grip on reality here,” added Hennessy.

 

“Howard is the British, Commonwealth and European champion and is only now reaching his peak.  He is ranked by the WBC at number one, by the WBA at number six and by the IBF at number three.

 

“He has already boxed for, and deserved to win, the WBA title; a belt held in much higher esteem by the American’s than Calzaghe’s WBO crown.

 

“That fight was lost on a tight points decision after Howard came out of the blocks slowly. He is a different boxer now. He is completely comfortable with his new surroundings and now has an excellent training team; he will undoubtedly emerge from the Calzaghe fight, if it happens, as the WBO super middleweight champion.

 

“He will go into the fight already as a triple champion and deserves a purse of more than £100,000 to reflect that.

 

“Warren made the claim that: ‘this sum, be assured, is far more than the fighter has ever earned in his career.’ This is utterly ridiculous. Unlike his partner Frank Maloney, it seems Warren has failed to remember that Howard Eastman boxed William Joppy in Las Vegas in 2001.

 

“On Warren’s very own web-site Maloney admitted that Eastman got more than £100,000 for boxing Joppy.

 

“These people head up the same company, yet it is obvious that they do not even communicate with one another. One hand obviously does not know what the other is doing.

 

“Warren then goes on to remarkably attempt to infringe on Howard’s privacy by requesting access to his bank statements before declaring that he knows his earnings anyway as he spoke to Howard before he signed with me.  As he states himself, that was BEFORE he signed with me.”

 

Quality of fights

 

“Warren then decides to criticise the quality of Howard’s last five fights. For some reason he fails to mention that these contests came after Eastman had been out of the ring and gym for a long period of time, but still saw him win, and defend, the European middleweight title.

 

“Warren made particular reference to the Gary Beardsley match.  We admit that Beardsley was not our first choice of opponent, but Howard is a hard boxer to match and at least we called this fight what it was – an eight rounder.

 

“It was nothing more than a warm-up for the next defence of his trio of titles and was not our top of the bill fight. We could have made the fight for a title, like Warren did when Calzaghe boxed club-fighter Tocker Pudwill, but preferred not to bill it as something it wasn’t.

 

“In the process of criticising this fight he also found the time to insult yet another boxer – Matthew Thirlwall, who avenged his only defeat to Gary Beardsley on our last show.  I would like to see if Warren would put his over hyped light middleweight Matthew Macklin in with Gary Beardsley, or better still put Macklin in with Thirlwall?”

 

Don King and options

 

“Warren then inevitably turns his invective towards me.  He states that if I tried to make fights between Howard Eastman and either Joppy or Bernard Hopkins that I would never get away without granting options to the pair’s promoter Don King.

 

“I may be relatively new to promoting but I see that as a positive, I am looking to breathe fresh life into the sport.

 

“Warren may have been in the business for a long time but I feel that for all of his experience, he has brought nothing new to the sport and has merely allowed himself to become stale and pick up bad habits.

 

“And despite my short time as a promoter, at least I already know for a fact that there are times when Don King, for the good of the sport, will wipe his mouth and surrender options in the interest of making a fight for the good of boxing.

 

“Warren, however, seems to want to live and breathe by options, declaring them as ‘part and parcel of Championship Boxing,’ despite the fact that they are widely recognised as one of the problems with the game today.  Boxing is the only sport where the loser gets to pull rank on the winner.

 

“Can you imagine options working in football? It is like Man Utd demanding that they take control of Arsenal if they lose a match to them.

 

“This is why Senator Richard Bryan, a co-sponsor of the Muhammad Ali act, is proud of the section of the legislation that deals with the 'limitations of option contracts.’

 

“Options, in his words, prevent: 'two of the best fighters in a division from fighting each other - which Boxing fans should be able to take for granted.'

 

“So for the good of boxing, lets put options to one side for this fight. Let’s not also forget that Howard Eastman is a champion, the only reason the fight would be for Calzaghe’s title is that Joe could never get down to middleweight.

 

“Anyway, I would like to thank Warren for his words of wisdom. These meant a lot to me as his recent promotions, featuring such heady attractions as Anthony Farnell vs Wayne Elcock and Tony Oakey vs Neil Linford, have been an inspiration.

 

“I particularly admire the way Warren had the gall to bill these contests as being for a world championship, but criticises the BBC for calling some of Howard’s recent performances ‘world class.’

 

“I also appreciate his advice on how to work with Don King. If Warren and I should work together in the future I look forward to him showing me the ropes on this one, especially how to shell out the reported sum of £7.2 million after a court case.

 

“Lets face it; I need Warren’s advice on how to work with Don King, like Tony McCoy needs piles.”

 

Profiles

 

“Warren continued to ignore reality in his release when he proudly declared that Calzaghe boxes in front of sell out crowds wherever he fights. Has he forgotten that he bombed last summer at the Cardiff Castle when he fought Miguel Jimenez?

 

“The only time he’s boxed since then was against Tocker Pudwill, a fight Showtime turned down, in Newcastle and it was Ricky Hatton who sold that venue out.

 

“He also forgets that Howard Eastman, one of the most talked about domestic fighters, is watched by millions of viewers on the BBC each time he steps into the ring.

 

“In Britain, more people watched our last show featuring Howard Eastman, than watched the last five promotions featuring Joe Calzaghe.  

 

“This is not an indictment of Sky, whom I feel have given boxing essential support over the last decade or so; they can only work with the product given to them by Warren whom, incidentally, I don’t even believe is their best promoter.

 

“Joe Calzaghe, after beating Chris Eubank, should have become a household name. It is amazing that he isn’t, but not surprising. I believe Warren has forgotten what’s important – viewing figures and the general public.

 

“This can be the only reason that he does not believe that Eubank-Benn one was a massive fight, despite the fact that it caught everybody’s interest and attracted record viewing figures.

 

“It was the precursor to all of the big showdowns in the nineties.  It started it all.  Listing later fights as being bigger in terms of finance and gate is just a smokescreen.

 

“Could it be that Warren does not like acknowledging the significance of Eubank-Benn one as it was put together principally by Ambrose Mendy, who for some reason he seems to have a problem with, despite the fact that Warren was best man at his wedding?”

 

More Smokescreens

 

“Warren does not appear serious about this fight. It strikes me that he is frightened at the prospect of Joe Calzaghe losing his undefeated record and I feel that he is simply using the promise of the contest to generate cheap headlines.

 

“A blatant example of his headline grabbing tactics was when he declared that he would lodge £500,000 with the British Boxing Board of Control as a side bet on the outcome of the contest with me. 

 

“I know for a fact that the Board would take no part in this. They are a regulatory body, not a bookmaker.

 

“If he were serious about a side bet, and could somehow lay his hands on that kind of money, it would suggest to me that he is looking for other ways to line his own pockets when he should be concentrating on putting money into making this fight happen.  Howard Eastman deserves more than £100,000 for this fight, which the British public deserve to see.

 

“Warren was quick to whip up yet another smokescreen when declaring that his offer to Howard of £100,000 was more than Chris Eubank earned for boxing Nigel Benn the first time round, a fight that took place thirteen years ago.

 

“As Warren said himself, Eubank wanted that opportunity to go on to bigger pay days. Howard Eastman does not need to do that; he already holds three traditional titles and is the WBC’s number one contender. He needs to prove himself to nobody.

 

“Further proof that the offer to Howard was a paper one, comes with the fact that Warren initially suggested running the fight at the end of May. This would have allowed no time to promote the clash - what’s more he apparently already had Byron Mitchell lined up for that date.

 

“Ironically, shortly after his proud announcement that his big draw Calzaghe was boxing the former two times WBA champion at the 11,000+ capacity Telewest Arena, I learned that the show had been delayed and moved back to the much smaller Cardiff International Arena.”

 

The way forward

 

“Lets put the talking behind us now and get serious about making this fight - I can assure Warren that Howard Eastman will not ‘dog it’ in the face of a real offer as he suggests.

 

“If anything it may be the other way round given the accounts I have received on the sparring sessions Howard enjoyed with Calzaghe a few years ago.  Make no mistake; Howard is as keen as I am to give the British public what they would like to see.

 

“Let’s not let them down again – as it seems to me Warren has done with Hatton vs Witter.

 

“For the sake of the sport let us both put options to one side. As I said earlier Howard Eastman is a champion as well.  I am, however, prepared to grant the rematch clause requested.

 

“This will also allow us to resolve the problem with our respective broadcasting commitments.  It is important that television rights do not get in the way of making this fight.

 

“If Warren could lose his ego for a moment, he would realise that the smart thing to do in this situation would be to agree reasonable terms and to have the first fight on a Hennessy Sports show on primetime BBC in order to maximise it’s impact.

 

“He could then promote the rematch on Sky, even possibly as a Pay Per View fight given the numbers who would inevitably have tuned in first time round. However, I doubt that this is ever going to happen.

 

“So I suggest that we both put our bids for the contest in a sealed envelope. These envelopes can then be opened at a press conference. The promoter with the highest bid gets to stage the fight with their broadcaster.

 

“The broadcaster who loses out gets the delayed rights. This will increase the fight’s exposure.

 

“Purses for the fight will be determined from a 75/25 split of the winning bid in favour of the champion. The losing promoter has the right to stage the rematch with their broadcaster on the same terms.

 

“Should they decide not to do so, the promoter of the first contest has the right to stage the return on the same terms.

 

“If Warren is worried about Joe losing his WBO title we can even do the fight at half a pound above the super middleweight limit so that the belt is not on the line and split the bid 50/50.  The title is not important, the two boxers are. 

 

“I am aware that Warren may now accuse me again of conducting negotiations in public. In response to this I would say that people in glasshouses should not throw stones.

 

“More importantly, I feel that it has to be done like this for the benefit of everyone concerned. Firstly, Joe Calzaghe and Howard Eastman will maximise their earnings this way. Secondly, things can then remain transparent; there would be no scope for the diversionary tactics that play such a prevalent part in boxing. I want everyone to be able to see whose fault it is if this fight does not take place.”

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