THE CANADIAN PRESS
The fallout from boxing champion Steve Molitor’s brief split with his management team is that he has parted ways with trainer Chris Johnson.
Molitor (27-0, 10 knockouts) announced two weeks ago that he would leave promoter Allan Tremblay and manager James Jardine to seek a more lucrative contract with a U.S. promoter, but when the Sarnia, Ont. fighter changed his mind, Johnson balked at going back.
A new trainer, chosen by Molitor, is to be named next week.
"I told Chris I was going back to Allan and James and he didn’t want anything to do with that," Molitor said Friday. "Me and Chris are cool, but I think he had a relationship problem with Allan and James."
Johnson, who won a bronze medal for Canada at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona, has trained Molitor for his last seven fights, including his victory over Michael Hunter in England in 2006 to win the IBF belt and his four title defences.
Tremblay believes it was Johnson who planted the idea in Molitor’s mind that he was underpaid for his four most recent fights, all at Casino Rama near Orilla, Ont. He said Johnson had been pushing to be paid a monthly salary on top of the 10 per cent he received from Molitor’s fight purses.
Molitor was reportedly ready to accept a US$2-million, two-year contract from U.S. promoter Murad Mohammed, but stepped back upon learning of disputes over money Mohammed has had with other boxers, including a 2005 lawsuit filed by Filipino star Manny Pacquiao that was settled out of court.
Last week, Molitor told reporters that the $100,000 he received for each of his title defences and the $175,000 he was offered for a title unification bout this fall with WBA champ Celestino Caballero were "small potatoes."
A contrite Molitor issued a statement Thursday in which he called his split with management a "monumental" mistake.
"Bowing to the influence of people around me who had their own interests at heart and deceived by the promise of mega-dollars that really were not there, I went down a path I never should have even contemplated," the statement said.
Johnson declined to comment on the split, but wished Molitor well.
"It has nothing to do with Steve," said Johnson, who also trains bantamweight Andrew Kooner, Nathalie (Too Bad) Brown and others. "I hope he continues to be as successful as he has been with me.
"He’s a great kid and I hope I helped him along the way."
Tremblay said Molitor had been enticed by "Monopoly money," and that he was paid fair value, particularly as those in the lower weight classes tend to make less than the bigger fighters. Molitor fights at 122 pounds.
Molitor will get a tune-up bout under his new trainer when he makes an optional title defence on Aug. 29 at Casino Rama before trying to unify the IBF and WBA titles in the fall.
Talks are underway to arrange the bout with Florida-based Warriors Boxing, which promotes Caballero (29-2, 20 KOs). The 31-year-old Panamanian has defended his WBA belt five times since winning it in 2006.
Meanwhile, Montreal-based Adrian Diaconu will challenge American Chad Dawson for the WBC light-heavyweight title after Gankor Promotions won a purse bid Friday in Mexico City with an offer of $1.813 million to stage the fight. .
Dawson’s promoter Gary Shaw offered $1.301 million. Under a 60/40 split in the champion’s favour, Dawson (26-0, 17 KOs) will earn $1,087,800 while Diaconu (25-0, 15 KOs) will get $725,200.
The bout is to be held in Romania within 90 days. For a second time this year, Montreal promoter InterBox will work with Gankor to have Diaconu fight in his native country.
Diaconu won the interim WBC belt with a 12-round decision over American Chris Henry in Bucharest on April 19.
The WBC ordered an interim title fight to be held when Dawson elected to take a bout with Glen Johnson — a 12-round win on April 12 — rather than make a mandatory defence against Diaconu.
Diaconu, of Ploesti-Prehova, Romania, has fought out of Montreal since 2001.
He is bidding to become Canada’s fourth fighter with a world title from one of the major fight sanctioning bodies.
Molitor has the IBF super-bantamweight belt, Joachim Alcine of Laval, Que., is the WBA light-middleweight champ and Lucian Bute of Montreal, also a Romania native, is the IBF super-middleweight champion.
Alcine (30-8, 19 KOs) is to make his second title defence on July 11 against Daniel Santos (31-3-1, 22 KOs) at Uniprix Stadium in Montreal.