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Montiel-Johnson to go 'Boxing After Dark'
By Steve Kim (July 7, 2003)
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In a case of potential disaster being averted, it looks like inste d of getting a real bad fight between two big guys - Attila Levin and Samuel Peter - boxing fans will instead a get a very good one between two of the game's premier smaller fighters, Fernando Montiel and Mark 'Too Sharp' Johnson. Scheduled to take place on August 16th at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Connecticut, the HBO-televised bout will be co-featured under the featherweight unification tilt between Juan Manuel Marquez and Derrick Gainer.
Earlier, HBO had wanted to shove Peter-Levin down the throat of promoter Lou DiBella before common sense (and good taste) prevailed. Seriously, wasn't 'Boxing After Dark' created for guys like Montiel and Johnson? 'Heavyweight Explosion' is where Peter and Levin belong.
"Mark Johnson hasn't accepted yet but I'm hoping that he will," said Gary Gittelsohn, who manages Montiel, the current WBO 115-pound titlist. "It will be absolutely terrific because it'll give Fernando Montiel an opportunity to show his talent on HBO, which is something I've been working on harder than anything to try to make happen."
Johnson hasn't signed on the dotted line yet, but he seems eager to do so.
"I definitely want the opportunity, I'm looking forward to it and of course the best thing is that I had a chance to get a fight on, which will be 45 days before the Montiel fight," said Johnson, a title holder at both flyweight and junior bantamweight.
"This is a big opportunity for me," Johnson continued. "The way Max Kellerman called out Eric Morel and he said he would move up but I didn't have anything to offer. So this fight on the line has a lot to offer me when I beat this boy. Because I'm looking forward to unification of this title with the WBC, IBF - everybody.
"I'm ready to fight, this boy ain't been through what Mark Johnson been through and this is a time for me to shine and to show everybody that the Marquez fight, he was just out my weight class - not that he was better than me. That he was just so much bigger than me."
For Montiel, this is a chance to go to the next level of his career. Despite capturing two title belts, Montiel is relatively unknown.
"Being a world champion is not enough anymore," says Gittelsohn. "You have to show something special just to get on HBO, which is the place where superstars are born and Montiel is a guy that is a former world champion at 112, he's a current world champion at 115, and he's beaten and knocked out the current world champion at 118, Cruz Carbajal.
"So here's an opportunity for him to fight a guy who until recently was on everybody's pound-for-pound list and who has never lost to anybody below 115 and if he should have the kind of performance that we all expect of him, I think in one HBO performance, he can be propelled into that elite group of boxers."
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E-Mail Steve Kim at k9kim@maxboxing.com
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