Richard Schaefer says Victor Ortiz-Andriy Kotelnik unlikely
Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer has confirmed that Junior welterweights Victor Ortiz and Andriy Kotelnik aren’t likely to touch gloves in the ring any time soon.
There was talk that the top rated fighters would be placed on the December 11 HBO card, headlined by junior welterweight champ Amir Khan and mandatory challenger Marcos Maidana.
The card is set at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. After discussing the possibility with Kotelnik’s promoter Don King, Schaefer confessed the two are far off financially, and that Kotelnik has other offers on the table he may choose to accept. Some include
IBF contender Kaizer Mabuza and British sensation John Murray.
"I think we are further apart rather than being closer on the Victor Ortiz-Andriy Kotelnik fight, to tell you the truth," Schaefer acknowledged.
"There is just not enough money. I cannot make it happen with the kind of money that HBO is putting on the table, so I don't think that it's going to work."
Schaefer continued, “The fact is that Kotelnik lost against Devon Alexander, he's lost against Amir Khan, and he won a controversial decision against Maidana. I think that Ortiz and Kotelnik need to be a bit more reasonable if they want to get into a fight
like that. But it doesn't look that's going to happen. I'm trying to get a hold of [HBO's Senior Vice President of Programming] Kery Davis to see what can be done, but I think that we're going to have to look at other potential opponents.”
Ortiz (28-2, 22 KOs) was the 2008 ESPN prospect of the year. His most notable fight was a close loss to WBA interim champ Marcos Maidana, in which both were knocked down in the first round and slugged it out for five more rounds. In the sixth, the fight
was stopped due to a cut Ortiz sustained in the previous round.
Ortiz remains a formidable force in the junior welterweight division, and many believe his best days lie ahead of him.
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