Ricky Burns vs Mzonke Fana ain't happening next

Junior lightweight contender Argenis Mendez won the last time he fought in South Africa. If he wins a second consecutive bout there, he will claim a world title.

Mendez, a native of the Dominican Republic who is living in New York, will challenge South Africa's Mzonke Fana for his 130-pound title on June 11 in Johannesburg after their promoters reached a deal a few hours before Tuesday's scheduled purse bid.

The 24-year-old Mendez (18-1, 9 KOs) scored a first-round knockdown and went on to outpoint former titleholder Cassius Baloyi in South Africa on Jan. 29 in the eliminator that earned him the title shot against Fana.

"I'm glad he had that last fight in South Africa," Lou DiBella, Mendez's promoter, told ESPN.com. "It was very good experience to have fought there before going into this fight. He won the decision there and did very well. He will be comfortable fighting there again. I am very confident he can win the title there.

"Fana is still a good fighter, but [Mendez] has a lot of advantages going for him and he will be well-served by having fought there before. He is excited about the opportunity to win a title."

The 37-year-old Fana (30-4, 12 KOs) won a title for the second time in September when he claimed a vacant belt by outpointing Baloyi. It was a rematch of their 2008 fight in which Baloyi won the decision to end Fana's first title reign.

Fana was hoping to meet Scotland's Ricky Burns in a summer unification fight after Burns and his promoter, Frank Warren, called him out. However, they were unable to make a deal.

Had they been able to reach an agreement, Fana would have been able to delay the mandatory defense against Mendez because the IBF's rules allow unification bouts to take precedence over mandatories.

"The offer Frank made for us to come to the U.K. for a unification was just a little bit more money than a normal challenger would get," Branco Milenkovic, Fana's promoter, said. "I doubled the offer and up to this moment they can't make up their mind. No disrespect, but I think they didn't want the fight to happen. The easiest way to kill the fight is to offer too little money.

"After I doubled up, they still were not prepared to come to South Africa. Maybe Burns wanted the fight, but Frank doesn't. I understand. But don't go three months telling me you want to make a deal. We were really looking forward to a unification fight in South Africa, but we couldn't get it made, so I decided to go with DiBella because I saw Warren is not interested and I have a good working relationship with Lou. So we were able to make a deal. Mendez fought well when he was in South Africa."

GrantZilla wrote:Fucking boxing politics at it again

GrantZilla wrote:Yeah. If Fana wins. He's pretty old

Ali wrote:Frank could have at least broke open the piggy bank for Burns and treated him to a stadium fight, I might have finally gotten to witness a major fight ringside

As much as I like Ricky I am not convinced he'll hold on to that trinket, the next WBO mandatory will be extremely dangerous.

gomez1012 wrote:

Ali wrote:Frank could have at least broke open the piggy bank for Burns and treated him to a stadium fight, I might have finally gotten to witness a major fight ringside

As much as I like Ricky I am not convinced he'll hold on to that trinket, the next WBO mandatory will be extremely dangerous.

Id love to see Burns vs Terdsak Jandaeng!

That be a nice scrap

I think Terdsak could KO Burns

Ali wrote:lol Are you being serious ?

gomez1012 wrote:

Ali wrote:lol Are you being serious ?

Ofcourse mang, just pulled up the WBO rankings and Terdsak is rated #1 by the WBO!
http://www.wbo-int.com/revised/RANKINGS-WBO.asp

Why you hating on Terdsak? He's about to stomp on your Glascow boy

Ali wrote:
javascript:emoticonp('') Cruz vs Martinez is a WBO eliminator this month, the winner will be Burns mandatory.

Ali wrote:The fight was on off for awhile but now it's set for the JuanMa vs Salido undercard

SlickMoney wrote:Like i said...Money > Ring Belt

GrantZilla wrote:

SlickMoney wrote:Like i said...Money > Ring Belt

Which makes no sense, considering The Ring belt doesn't charge a sanctioning fee, but fighters are fine having a bogus trinket and having to not only pay for the stupid belt itself, but a % of the purse to keep it.

The real reason is, promoters don't like The Ring belt because they can't bribe their way to getting their undeserving fighters manditory title shots. Or in the case of Alverez, the belt just handed to them.

Shaw is in bed with IBF, no shocker his fighter's get ranked high by them. Sautherland in bed with the WBA, again no shock his fighters get ranked high with them. Warren's in bed with WBO, same story, ect, ect.

Since whole Don King bribery with a Ring writer, Sugar after taking over, put a panel in place of well respected people in boxing, which make rankings tampery impossible now. And so, promoters hate it.

UBeeg9cats wrote:I didn't know anyone would get in bed with Shaw