Last week Nirmal Lorick, manager and trainer of WBC #2 rated welterweight Luis Collazo has publicly pulled out of the scheduled June 5th WBC Silver Championship against hard-hitting Selcuk Aydin. Lorick said that his fighter was not able to make the weight after a long lay-off and in addition to that had no interest in traveling to Turkey for a world title fight for a purse of US$ 105,000.- ARENA had won the purse bid for Aydin vs. Collazo on March 5th at the WBC headquarters in Mexico and announced that the fight will take place on June 5th at Abdi Ipekci Spor Salonu in Istanbul, Turkey. After Collazo pulled out promoter Ahmet Öner said the championship fight on June 5th will still go ahead..
“All we have to do now is find a new opponent now”, states Öner. “That is not what we had originally planned but things like that happen in boxing. I only wonder why team Collazo found out that they cannot make 147 anymore six weeks after the purse bid. If they are afraid to fight Selcuk they could have said so from the beginning on. Maybe they just started watching his tapes and found out that they have no chance against him. I don’t know.”
When Aydin himself heard about Collazo’s decision to pull out of the fight he was disappointed and furious at the same time. “If Collazo was a real man he would come and fight me”, said Aydin at his training camp in Miami, Florida. “I would love to show him in the ring what I think about cowards like him. But if he cannot make the weight I will fight whoever can make 147 pounds. I am not afraid of anybody. I know that there are a lot of big names in the welterweight division at the moment but I am ready to prove that I am better than all of them. I trust in my management and the WBC that they will find a worthy co-challenger for me soon. All I am interested in is becoming champion and showing the world that I am the best boxer in the world.”
According to the WBC rules and regulations the next highest available contender will replace Collazo. As Saul Alvarez (#4) will fight Jose Miguel Cotto this Saturday on the Mayweather – Mosley undercard possible opponents for Aydin might be #5 Ivan Kirpa, #6 Luis Abregu or #7 Alfonso Gomez. “I hope that we can present a new opponent within the next week”, said Öner.