15.12.06 – Michael Marley Reporting/Exclusive from www.boxingconfidential.com: When he was the whackier half of the Gerry Cooney managerial duo known far and wide as “the Whacko Twins,” it was almost always a safe assumption that Dennis Rappaport was speaking with forked tongue.
Rapstar, as I like to call him, liked to puff. He liked to exaggerate. He liked to tell fibs and tales. There are no lies in boxing, only tales, so I can tell you Rappaport told some whoppers but he never, ever lied. I believe he and George Bush Jr. at least have that in common although Bush is more of a baseball man than a fight guy.
Now comes forward as sort of a character witness for Rapport…Mr. Shelly Finkel, another clever teller of fistic fibs and tales and exaggerations. Mr. Finkel wants the world to know that Rappaport’s statements about an Oleg Maskaev-Wladimir Klitschko WBC – IBF heavyweight title being put together are based in reality..
“We could put it together, yes,” Finkel told me. “The people in Moscow are very real. They have a great site and they would sell ringside seats for $2,000. Dennis dealt with them on Maskaev’s defense against Okhello and these people performed as they promised they would.
“Wlad wants to unify as he keeps saying but I don’t think (WBC president Jose) Sulaiman wants to see this unification bout happen. I spoke to Jose and he did not give me a yes and Wlad called Jose and he did not get a yes, either,” Finkel said.
If Sulaiman’s ear remains deaf to Klitschko-Maskaev, what then?
“I keep having conversations with Don King about (mandatory bout against Ray) Austin. HBO would put that on March 10 with split sites, with Shannon Briggs-Sultan Ibragimov from the US and Klitschko-Austin from Germany. Heidelburg is a likely site for that one. If things remain the same, Wladimir will look to make a unification bout after he beats Austin.”
(Michael Marley, who normally eschews the KGB and plutonium cocktails, is at mlcmarley@aol.com)