By Allan Fox: Earlier on Thursday, it was revealed by Artur Beterbiev’s promoter Yvon Michel that Sullivan Barrera (18-1, 13 KOs) hadn’t signed the contract for the fight and wasn’t going to take the fight. This was supposed to be an IBF light heavyweight eliminator match on April 21. The winner of the Beterbiev-Barrera fight would be the mandatory challenger to IBF champion Andre Ward.
The unbeaten #2 IBF Beterbiev (11-0, 11 KOs) says Barrera wanted more money than 75/25 split would give him. The fight had gone to a purse bid with Beterbiev’s promoter from GYM winning the bid with a $251,000 bid in beating out Barrera’s promoters’ bid from Main Events. It’s unclear how much money Barrera wanted for the fight. Beterbiev says that Barrera was asking for more money in sending tweets to his promoter.
There is a possibility that Beterbiev may be elevated to the IBF mandatory spot, as his promoter Yvon Michel plans on asking the International Boxing Federation to making him the No.1 contender for the sanctioning body. He’s not happy with the time that Beterbiev lost with them thinking Barrera was going to take the fight.
Here’s what Beterbiev had to say on his Instagram:
“My dear friends and fans; to my deepest regret I have to inform you that my fight against Sullivan Barrera has been cancelled. The American boxer of Cuban origin refused to face me in an IBF eliminator bout. At present he might make up different excuses for his refusal (absence of contract, signature, etc.), but there are facts he cannot deny. Let us be honest: everything gets down to his money for this fight. As you are well aware of, on February 2nd the Beterbiev-Barrera fight went to a purse bid. My promoter (GYM) won with a bid of $251,000. Main Events, Barrera’s promoter, bid just over $181,000. A 75-25 split for this bout was in my favor, because Barrera is lower than me in the rank standings. Such a split is standard during a purse bid. According to the IBF rules, GYM had to submit an official contract for the fight until February 17th, including date and site. On the eve, on February 16th, I received a standard IBF contract for the fight, signed it and sent it back to my promoter. The same contract was sent to Barrera. After receiving both contracts the IBF confirmed the fight which was scheduled on April 21th in Miami, where Barrera trains and lives. On February 22th, Barrera started a notorious twitter war against my promoter trying to get more money from GYM. Kathy Duva even had to intervene by responding to her fighter that he must see his manager and lawyer. To cut this sad story short, I would like to repeat again: our 21th April fight in Miami was officially approved by the IBF and scheduled to take place. So whatever Barrera says, he refused the fight scheduled by the IBF. Looking forward to good news and wish you all the best!” said Beterbiev.
Beterbiev wants to get a title shot at the IBF champion as soon as he can. If he has to wait for the IBF to find another contender to agree to the fight, the process could take a long time before he finally gets inside the ring to fight in the IBF eliminator.
“He made us lose a lot of time,” said Beterbiev’s promoter Michel about Barrera to the Canadian Press. “Even by resuming the process of offering the fight to all those ranked below Barrera, as they a week to answer, it could cause Artur to wait another two months,” said Michel.