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A proposed bout between WBC super lightweight boxing champion Arturo Gatti and undefeated challenger Floyd Mayweather Jr. has been canceled. Donald Tremblay, a spokesman for Gatti’s promoter, Main Events Inc., said Mayweather missed a Friday deadline to sign a contract agreeing to fight Gatti on June 11 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Main Events will find another boxer to face Gatti on that date, Tremblay said. “This fight was supposed to be announced on Jan. 29 and it got postponed because of Mayweather’s legal problems,” Tremblay said. “Arturo waited for those problems to be solved, and after those problems were solved, he expected the contract to be signed and it wasn’t signed.”
Mayweather (33-0, 22 knockouts) and his promoter, Top Rank Inc., apparently couldn’t agree on how much money he would be guaranteed for the fight, Tremblay said.
“I don’t have time for that,” Gatti (39-6, 29 knockouts) said in a statement issued by Main Events. “It’s his problem if he’s having problems with his promoter.”
A telephone message seeking comment was left Monday at Las Vegas-based Top Rank.
Mayweather was fined and ordered to perform community service in a Grand Rapids courtroom on Feb. 23, but avoided a possible three-month jail sentence after pleading no contest earlier in the month to a charge of misdemeanor assault and battery.
A no contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is treated as such for sentencing purposes.
The charge stemmed from a Dec. 18, 2003, bar fight that injured a bouncer. The bouncer told police that Mayweather kicked him while he was down on the ground, after another man broke a bottle over the bouncer’s head.
The bouncer sued Mayweather and the lawsuit was settled out of court shortly before the boxer’s sentencing.
Mayweather grew up in Grand Rapids but now lives and trains in Las Vegas. He is a former WBC super featherweight and lightweight champion who has moved up to the 140-pound weight class.
