Ishe Smith Pulls out of September 24 Brinkley Fight

http://www.boxingtalk.net/pages/free4612.htm

Well, first of all I was surprised to see the fight was moved back to September 24th. This is a fight night that was originally supposed to happen in early July, and was to be Sept 1st last I heard. Now that the Ishe/Jesse fight is off, I'm wondering if the fights will ever happen?

Hopefully, VegasFightWriter can find some more information?

I don't know what Contender/ESPN might do to replace this fight. Hopefully they can get Sergio back in to participate? Then maybe we can have these two pretty competitive fights?...

Sergio/Alfonso
Jesse/Peter

• RE: Ishe Pulls Out of Fight!,VegasFightWriter, 05:09 PM, 07-26-05
  • RE: Ishe Pulls Out of Fight!,renoguy, 06:11 PM, 07-26-05
    • RE: Ishe Pulls Out of Fight!,JiveGuy, 06:19 PM, 07-26-05
      • RE: Ishe Pulls Out of Fight!,VegasFightWriter, 07:52 AM, 07-27-05
        • RE: Ishe Pulls Out of Fight!,Wacko Jacko, 02:44 PM, 07-28-05
          • RE: Ishe Pulls Out of Fight!,JiveGuy, 04:16 PM, 07-28-05
• Card now pushed back to October?,VegasFightWriter, 05:19 PM, 07-30-05
  • RE: Card now pushed back to October?,Wacko Jacko, 10:44 AM, 08-01-05

The story is pretty much as on BoxingTalk. Ishe, who started at 147 before the show, was asked to fight at 165 because Jesse can't make a lower weight. And for that sacrifice, he was asked to take significantly less money than Jesse. He didn't want to take it, Joe Goossen didn't want him to take it, he's not taking it. He's ready to move on, not fight jesse Brinkley over seven rounds for the short end of the purse three full weight divisions above his recent fighting weight. I'm biased, but I'm on his side.

Sergio/Alfonso almost certainly won't happen. Sergio looked HUGE when I saw him a little over a wek ago. He looks like he's a light heavyweight right now, and Alfonso shouldn't really be fighting at 160. Plus, I believe Sergio still has bone spurs. But who knows what will happen now?

I would of thought that they would of agreed to fight at a certain weight back when they agreed to the fight in the first place. And it's still two months away, so I'd think Jesse could make the weight if he had to. So I'm wondering if one of them changed their mind? Don't think you can do that if it's already signed, but maybe it wasn't yet? I seem to recall Jesse saying he no longer wanted to fight at 160, so I would of thought that would of been an issue before the fight was set.

Didn't know Ishe was going to make less than Jesse. One thing I liked about the last Contender fights was that the winner took the bigger purse (except for maybe the case of Anthony). I wish they'd keep that.

And I agree, if Ishe went to a higher weight class than is natural for him, he should be fairly compensated.

Without Ishe or Sergio, there is no other good 2nd match I can think of for ESPN. Maybe they can find someone outside of Contender for Jesse to fight? With all the different boxing organizations, maybe they could even get a top 10 fighter from one of them? They may not get anything career wise by fighting Jesse, but the publicity would be great for some aspiring fighter.

damn. more set backs. just as long as we get Contender 2.

LAST EDITED ON 07-27-05 AT 07:56 AM (EST)

From what I hear, Contender 2 is now looking a good possibility for ESPN. Sly will probably not be involved ($$$$), Ray will be. Don't know about Jackie or Tommy. And the talk remains of Contender 2 guys fighting Contender 1 guys, although I don't know if that is during the season itself or afterward.

This whole thing sounds ridiculous to me. If all 16 guys signed up to fight at one weight than they should fight at that weight. It's Jesse's problem not Ishe's.

Gosh, I swear that Boxing is a bigger soap opera than Days of Our Lives. COME ON guys!!!! I am starting to lose interest in boxing again. It did not take long.

<And the talk remains of Contender 2 guys fighting Contender 1 guys, although I don't know if that is during the season itself or afterward.>

With guys dropping like flies out of their contract (Ahmed, Joey....?), what good boxers will be left from season 1? Brent? Lange? Juan? Miguel? Tarick? Bleh. Unless they brought back EVERYONE, I wish they'd just get a fresh crop of new guys. And damn, it's a shame Stallone is leaving.

It now looks as if the card may be pushed back yet again, this time to sometime in October, primarily because Sergio has now been medically cleared to resume training, so they want to give him time to get into shape so he can fight on the card. With that development, and with Ishe nixing the Brinkley fight, some of the proposed matchups have changed again. There is talk of a Mora-Manfredo rematch, which I think would be pointless. Alfonso was penciled in to fight Peter a third time, but they wanted to make the fight at 158, which Alfonso does not want to do, and shouldn't do, IMHO. Ishe has now been approached to fight (drumroll, please): Jonathan Reid. Yes, really. And they supposedly still want Juan De La Rosa to fight Brent Cooper. Oh yeah, sounds like a great card ...

The guys should fight at the weight the signed up to be at on the show. I am not sure what that weight is but if Jessee or Alfonzo don't want to than they should be charged with violating their contracts unless off course NBC did not put that in there...if not shame on them. Alfonzo should not force someone to come down as Jessee should not force someone to come up to fight him.