37-year-old Paul Spadafora has decided to pass on an agreed-to bout for August 17, in which he would have faced Thomas Dulorme on HBO Latino prior to a Boxing After Dark card on HBO, according to Gary Shaw, who promotes Dulorme and is running that night's Atlantic City event.
Shaw says that he'd reached a deal with Roy Jones Jr's team, which promotes Spadafora, but "The Pittsburgh Kid" decided not to sign the contract for whatever reason. Spadafora (48-0-1, 19 KO) has been ostensibly working for a shot like this since returning to the sport from a prison sentence in 2006, but it seems that every time he's on the doorstep for something like this rather than a headline spot in Chester, West Virginia, he doesn't take the offer.
Most who have seen Spadafora in recent years -- including friend and supporter Kelly Pavlik -- agree that it's highly unlikely he has any shot at becoming a real player in the sport again, as age and many out of the ring issues have taken a toll. Perhaps the fighter is content to do what he's been doing and merely pay lip service to doing more, just to keep his name in the mix. I don't know. But either way, he won't be in against Dulorme.