Jacobs rejects Kohl’s Jones-Michalczewski claim

July 25, 2001 – By Paul Upham: WBC, WBA, IBF and IBO light-heavyweight champion Roy Jones Jr’s adviser and representative Brad Jacobs has denied claims by WBO title-holder Dariusz Michalczewski’s promoter and Universum head Klaus Peter Kohl that a Jones Jr- Michalczewski bout is close to being made. “Unless he’s got some magical offer that he’s putting on the table to us, I really don’t know what he is talking about,” said Jacobs.

“I haven’t talked to him in over two months. Kerry Davis from HBO hasn’t talked to him in nearly a month, so I don’t know where he can come off and say anything like that since we haven’t had any conversations.”

Speaking to SecondsOut.com from his office in Germany on Monday, Kohl said, “I am very confident that later this year or very early next year Dariusz Michalczewski vs Roy Jones will happen.

“I have talked and tried to make this match happen for many years but now the time seems to be right – everybody wants it to happen now. We want it, of course Dariusz wants it, German television want it, HBO want it and most importantly now Jones wants it.”

Kohl added, “Jones fights this weekend and Michalczewski has a mandatory against Thomas Ulrich, but we will all be sitting down after the weekend. We are working very hard to make Roy Jones (vs. Michalczewski) and we have been at it for a long time now. We have been making progress and I think the fight is very close.”

However, those statements are the complete opposite to the views of the man appointed by Roy Jones Jr as his sole negotiator.

“I think that they’ll do anything to give the impression to the public that they want the fight. But in reality they don’t want the fight because every time we have asked them to come to the table, they don’t. When he (Kohl) feels like putting out a press release or making statements like he did without having any conversations with us is quite ridiculous,” said Jacobs.

After being uncooperative in trying to make the fight happen with Jacobs and HBO for so long, Klaus Peter Kohl and Michalczewski will continue to sit on the outside looking in.

If Jones Jr is successful in defending his titles against Julio Gonzalez this weekend at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, he will then pursue a fight with WBA middleweight champion Felix “Tito” Trinidad, if the Puerto Rican is successful in defeating WBC/IBF middleweight champion Bernard Hopkins and becoming the undisputed middleweight champion in September.

“I think the fight was a very makeable fight six months ago and three months ago, but now, all eyes are on Trinidad. It’s almost a case that Dariusz may be yesterday’s news,” said Jacobs.

“I can’t say he is 100% out of the picture. If for some reason something went on with Trinidad and that wasn’t a makeable fight, we would try once again, underlining once again, to try to do everything we could to make a Dariusz fight.

“But right now our eyes are set on Felix Trinidad and that’s only because we were not able to get anything out of Peter Kohl and Dariusz to make the fight happen. They will continue to say we were difficult or we don’t want to make it happen, but for anybody to take three months to even drag out of them a financial number that they thought would interest them, that is not faithful negotiations.”

For a Jones Jr-Michalczewski clash to ever happen, Universum has to come to the negotiating table with Jacobs and HBO for serious discussions.

“A lot of it depends on the result on September 15 between Trinidad and Hopkins. Roy would like to fight Dariusz. We think it is a good fight for Roy. We think the public thinks it is a good fight, but it is not the number one fight. The No.1 fight right now is Roy Jones Jr vs Felix Trinidad,” said Jacobs.


Paul Upham
Contributing Editor