Kathy Duva of Main Events was not shy about sharing her feelings on Adonis Stevenson and his advisor Al Haymon "ducking" her fighter, Sergey Kovalev, by signing a new deal with Showtime Sports, likely with the intent to face Bernard Hopkins at some point this year, and leading off with Stevenson's May 24 fight against Andrzej Fonfara.
Last night, Main Events and Showtime Sports boss Stephen Espinoza got into a bit of a verbal spat via Twitter, which started when Espinoza made a somewhat smarmy comment in response to being asked if Stevenson-Kovalev was a dead issue:
No. Kovalev's welcome to come to SHO too. "@rocknrao: Does deal with Stevenson kill the possibility of a Kovalev fight for the time being?"
— Stephen Espinoza (@StephenEspinoza) March 26, 2014
Main Events were quick to respond:
@StephenEspinoza @mark_mac18 Oh, now that he's signed with another network he's welcome at Showtime but a few months ago he wasn't? Nice.
— Main Events (@Main_Events) March 26, 2014
Espinoza had been challenged to a verbal duel with that tweet. He obliged:
@Main_Events Maybe if you called me even once to pitch your fighter there would have been more interest. It is called "promoting," right?
— Stephen Espinoza (@StephenEspinoza) March 26, 2014
Main Events did not back down!
@StephenEspinoza Maybe if you gave Championship Boxing dates to any promoter other than GBP/Mayweather, we would have tried. #pointless
— Main Events (@Main_Events) March 26, 2014
Espinoza called out the Golden Boy/Mayweather bit, pointing out that Stevenson is with neither party:
@Main_Events Yvon Michel disagrees. In any event, the one sure way not to get a SHO boxing date is to never ask for one...so well done.
— Stephen Espinoza (@StephenEspinoza) March 26, 2014
And then Main Events went for the wide open comeback, noting the man that may (or may not) be really running this entire show:
@StephenEspinoza Stevenson is with Al Haymon. C'mon, dude. Everyone knows what's going on at Showtime. Why pretend?
— Main Events (@Main_Events) March 26, 2014
It's all just empty back-and-forth that ultimately means little, but it's nice to see Main Events and Espinoza address this publicly. And by "nice" I mean mostly humorous for us, and probably maddening for the Main Events side, and possibly humorous for Espinoza, though I don't know, I'm not his BFF, I'm just a guy looking at Twitter same as any of you folk out there in TV Land, or wherever you are right now.