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Expressing disbelief that Bryant Jennings and manager James Prince would ask for a 50-50 split, Kathy Duva says that a proposed fight between Jennings and Tomasz Adamek is off. The fight had been targeted for November 2 on HBO, and would have aired alongside the Golovkin-Stevens fight.
Adamek (49-2, 29 KO) is a Main Events fighter, while Jennings (17-0, 9 KO) fights under Russell Peltz's banner, with Main Events having a minority stake in his career. Peltz also serves as the matchmaker for Main Events' NBC Sports series, and has gotten Jennings featured on the show numerous times.
Duva points out that since Prince has taken over as Jennings' manager, he's fought just once:
"Bryant Jennings fought five times last year. Prince became his manager at the end of last year of beginning of this year and he's only fought one time. he's canceled more fights than he's been in. He's cost him more fights than he's been in. That's not the way to build a superstar. ... Bryant Jennings went from being one of the hottest fighters in boxing last year to where nobody is talking about him anymore. When you're a young guy coming up, you take these kind of opportunities."
Prince, as you would expect, has a different take on the situation:
"In my opinion, she's feeling that way because she wants to screw us. She's feeling that way because she wants to say 'I went and got this and you deserve this.' That's the whole mission behind this. Now I came on board and her screwing is going to be limited and she don't like it. I just want to do good business for my fighter, and anybody who has anything in mind that isn't good business for my fighter - they are an enemy and no friend of mine."
So we've got she said-he said going on here, which is hardly a surprise, but Duva's right about at least one thing, and that's that Bryant Jennings was building up some buzz, and now he's not. Whether that's James Prince's influence or something else, I have no clue. Bottom line is it's too bad we won't get this fight. It's a good one for both fighters in terms of where they're at in their careers, and would have had both of them on HBO, which I don't think is knocking down the door for either guy otherwise.