Antonio Tarver isn’t happy his April 12 fight against Clinton Woods will compete with Atlantic City card headlined by Miguel Cotto. BY GEORGE WILLIS
TAMPA–Antonio Tarver is ticked his April 12 fight for the IBF/IBO light heavyweight titles will be competing against a card Miguel Cotto is headlining in Atlantic City. Tarver’s bout will be televised by Showtime, while Cotto defends his WBA welterweight championship against Alfonso Gomez at Boardwalk Hall on HBO.
Different boxing shows on competing networks is nothing new, but Tarver is miffed that three of his last four fights have been on the same date Cotto has headlined on a different network and he blames Bob Arum.
“Every time I get a date here comes Bob Arum or some other promoter sticking their heads up trying to minimize my growth,” Tarver said. “Every time I fight, they want to stick a bogus card on the night of my fight so they take away attention from me. But at the end of the day, people know that I’m a class act who puts on a quality performance.”
Tarver, the IBO belt-holder, meets Clinton Woods (41-3-1, 24 KOs) of Sheffield, England, at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa on April 12. In the co-feature, Glen Johnson challenges WBC light heavyweight champion Chad Dawson. Showtime will televise both bouts. It will be the third time in Tarver’s last four bouts that he’s had to share the boxing landscape with Cotto, the popular Puerto Rican welterweight, who is promoted by Arum’s Top Rank Inc.
Last June, Cotto defeated Zab Judah in the Garden on the same night Tarver was winning the IBO title against Elvir Muriqi in Connecticut. The year before that, Cotto beat Pauli Malignaggi in the Garden on the same night Tarver was losing his light heavyweight title to Bernard Hopkins at Boardwalk Hall. Both Cotto fights in the Garden were in conjunction with the Puerto Rican Day festivities.
“Arum needs to find his own dates,” Tarver said. “I don’t understand it and I don’t appreciate it. They just want to stunt my growth. They don’t want the Hispanic crowd to tune into what I’m doing. And when ratings are down they want to make it likes it’s something I’m doing.
“It hurts Cotto as well,” Tarver continued.”I’m sure he’s not happy about it and neither am I. Cotto is a star. I’m a star. There’s no way we should be bumping heads every night.”
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