Siaca first, but Green has his eye on Mundine again
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday February 17, 2010
DANNY GREEN'S failure to land a fight with big-name American boxers Bernard Hopkins and Antonio Tarver prompted last week's move to call out arch rival Anthony Mundine.Faced with the harsh economic realities of boxing, the IBO cruiserweight world champion realises that his best hope for another big payday lies in Australia with a rematch against Mundine rather than on the international stage.Green admitted as much at yesterday's press conference to announce an April 14 bout with Manny Siaca, the 34-year-old Puerto Rican who won the WBA super middleweight belt from Mundine in 2004."Manny Siaca dropped Anthony Mundine and took his title away and pretty much embarrassed the bloke," Green said."Our approach to Anthony Mundine is to try and smoke that rabbit out of his hole."Whether he is successful or how long it will take to bring the rematch to fruition remains to be seen, but Mundine intends to continue fighting at middleweight or junior middleweight in the immediate future to pursue his goal of winning a fourth world title.However, Mundine has also found it difficult to secure a big overseas fight as potential opponents such as Kelly Pavlik and Joe Calzaghe are wary of his ability and do not see the money they would earn as worth the risk.It is why Hopkins and Tarver rejected Green's offer to fight in the United States for nothing more than the Australian pay-per-view rights."You couldn't ask for a fairer or better offer than that. They wouldn't have to put up a cent of their money," Green said. "I told Roy Jones jnr the same thing, I would fight Roy Jones jnr for free, and Antonio Tarver was given the same offer but there was no money in America so he didn't want to take the offer obviously."Bernard Hopkins was exactly the same and he told me on the phone personally, 'There is no money in America for the fights now'."Not even his stunning first-round knockout of Jones in Sydney last December has improved Green's drawing power in the US and the fight would have been more lucrative for Hopkins or Tarver if they had come to Australia - but not enough to lure them out here.In fact, the only real impact the result appears to have had in the US is to diminish the 41-year-old Jones standing as one of the sport's all-time greats - which may explain the determination of his team to prove that Green's hand wraps were illegal and contained a resin that hardened after becoming wet from sweat.Still, Hopkins chose Jones over Green and his decision may have been influenced by the fact that American interest in the December 2 bout at Acer Arena had not been anywhere near as high as was initially anticipated when promoters announced the fight would be held on a Sunday afternoon to attract a prime time Saturday night television audience in the US."If we can't get the massive overseas names, we will take care of the biggest domestic issue we have," Green said in reference to Mundine, who won a unanimous points decision when the pair faced off in Australia's biggest fight at the SFS in 2006.
© 2010 Sydney Morning Herald
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