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Hanshaw
Camp Is "All-In" On Jones Offer To Fight
By William Trillo & Nat Gottlieb Foto Folly: Bret "The Threat" Newton
Ready and willing to play high stakes poker with Roy Jones Jr., promoter Gary Shaw and Anthony Hanshaw's trainer, John Russell, are calling his "bluff," as they put it, for a fight with their young boxing stud.
After pricing himself out a Showtime offer to match him
up with Hanshaw (21-0-1, 14 KOs), Jones is now saying he
will pay Hanshaw the same money the network offered,
$150,000, to fight him in his home state of Florida.
To
that, Shaw and Russell said, Bring It On!
"I
accept his offer of $150,000," Shaw told Pound4Pound.
"He should send us a bout agreement and we'll sign it.
They have a fight. The fight is officially on."
Jones is holding all the cards, and now all he has to do
is slide in his chips and this match will be made, with
a June 9 targeted date. But Russell, had doubts that
Jones is going to stay in the game.
"We
signed the (Showtime) contract, and thought it was a
done deal, but when it came time for Jones to sign the
deal, Mr. Jones got cold feet," said Russell, best known
as the trainer of Buster Douglas in his shocking upset
knockout of Mike Tyson in 1990.
The
deal with Showtime called for Jones to receive $500,000
and Hanshaw $150,000, but Jones decided it was not
enough to pay a "legend" and demanded another $1
million, which effectively killed the deal.
"When Roy asked Showtime for $1.5 million, with half up
front, I knew then he had taken one too many shots to
the head and needed a good medical exam," Shaw said.
Shaw also scoffed at statements by Jones that he did not
know Shaw that well, and didn't feel comfortable with
him as promoter of the proposed fight on Showtime.
"Roy is acting like he never met me and doesn't know who
I am," said Shaw, who began his career as a member of
the New Jersey State Athletic Commission and later was
chief operating officer for Main Events before opening
his own company in 2001. "I was on the New Jersey
Commission when Jones suffered his first loss (to
Montell Griffin, 1997 in Atlantic City) after
being disqualified by referee Tony Perez for hitting
Griffin when he was down. I have been out to lunch with
Roy. He knows who I am."
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