Sullivan Barrera pulls out of Beterbiev fight

According to Dan Rafael of espn.com, light heavyweight contender Sullivan Barrera has pulled out of his proposed elimination bout with Artur Beterbiev.

“Barrera never signed his contract to fight Beterbiev and we know now never intended to fight Beterbiev,” Michel told ESPN. “He is the latest of a long list of contenders who turned down an opportunity to fight Beterbiev for the IBF mandatory position. After we have won the purse bid, Barrera kept pretending on social media he was preparing to fight Beterbiev but refused to sign the IBF contract. Then they requested a Florida state contract. He got it and never signed it either. He could find any kind of excuses in the world, but the truth is he refused to fight for his share of the bid, the risk being too high for the compensation. If he would have believed he could beat Artur, he would have taken the fight.”

“I don’t believe any of the IBF contenders will volunteer to face Beterbiev for the mandatory position, so I will petition the IBF to name Artur the mandatory contender by default,” Michel said. “It’s really too bad [the fight is off] because I really had targeted Barrera for Beterbiev. I know he has some credibility, and a KO win by Artur would have made a good shock wave in the division. To make sure Barrera was going to take the fight, I even had promised to Main Events and the IBF I was not going to do the fight in Canada since Barrera has no passport and cannot enter the country. We were doing the fight in his own backyard.”