KATIE’S BID FOR BELTS HITS SNAG
KATIE TAYLOR’S ambition of becoming the undisputed lightweight champion of the world by next summer has run into trouble after talks stalled between her management team and the WBO champion Rose Volante.
It had been hoped that Taylor, who holds the IBF and WBA belts, would meet the Brazilian in Philadelphia on St Patrick’s weekend. However, Volante, who has never fought outside her native country, has snubbed the offer made to her and is believed to be holding out for more money.
Taylor’s manager Brian Peters scheduled a press conference yesterday where he had hoped to announce the bout. ‘The talks are ongoing as we speak,’ he said. ‘She has been given 24 hours to decide. This has been going on long enough. She was supposed to fight us in the last fight (at Madison Square Garden last weekend) and there has been a lot of talking. But Katie Taylor’s career will not be held up by any other fighter and we can’t be held to ransom.’
As well as Volante, the defending WBC lightweight champion Delfine Persoon is also proving to be elusive. The undefeated Belgian fighter insisted this week that she will fight Taylor anywhere, but Persoon is believed to prefer meeting the Irish fighter on home soil. Persoon has only boxed outside Belgium once.
The Persoon camp have offered Taylor €130,000 for the pair to face each other in Belgium, but that was dismissed as being too low an offer.
Meanwhile, Dereck Chisora and Dillian Whyte engaged in several hostile exchanges at yesterday’s head-to-head press conference in advance of their rematch at the O2 Arena in London.
The London rivals failed to repeat the fireworks that marred the build-up to their first fight in Manchester two years ago when Whyte snatched a controversial split decision.
Chisora joked that the tables had been screwed down in reference to scenes in 2016 when he picked one up and hurled it at Whyte, earning a £25,000 fine and a suspended two-year sentence.
Both fighters have been warned by the British Boxing Board of Control over their conduct ahead of tomorrow’s bout, but when Whyte mocked Chisora’s recent conversion into a born again Christian, the 34-year-old former world title challenger reacted.
‘The funniest thing is at least I’m not doing any black magic. The voodoo talk,’ Chisora said.
‘You might say whatever you want to say but don’t come with the black magic talk, giving me the curses and the voodoo talk.
‘They’ve screwed down the tables this time, but it’s OK. I don’t really want to do that any more. If I want to do something, I’ll do something.
‘But right now I’m just happy that training has gone well. I’m ready to fight. The plan is to bite down the gumshield and seek and destroy.
‘Everyone loved the first fight. I enjoyed it, although my brain cells didn’t enjoy it. I’ve been asking for this rematch for a while and it’s happening now.
‘It’s not a risky fight. We’re going to take what’s his and make it mine.’
Chisora has won all but one of his four fights since being edged by Whyte at the Manchester Arena, dropping a majority decision to Agit Kabayel in Monte Carlo where the crowd made a poor impression on the Harareborn Briton.
‘The crowd in Monaco — you’re sweating in there and you have people drinking their Margaritas, looking at you like it’s the gladiators or the slave days fighting for the white man,’ he said.
‘It was like that in Monaco. You look out of the ring and everyone is on their Blackberries and on their phones. It’s not a great place for boxing.’
Whyte was happy to let Chisora and his manager David Haye do most of the talking knowing he enters his 26th fight as odds-on favourite.
‘I’ve been in fights where people are screaming, I’m going to do this or do that. But I’m just conserving my energy. I’m relaxed,’ Whyte said.
‘You know I can fight and have that power.’