The undercard press conference was held today for this weekend’s HBO Boxing tripleheader from Montreal. Check out the quotes and notes here.
Vyacheslav “Czar” Glazkov
Thank you everybody for coming. Thank you for this opportunity. Thank you to my promoter Kathy Duva and Main Events. Thank you to my manager, Egis Klimas, and HBO. I am ready to fight and I will show a good fight on Saturday night.
Steve “USS” Cunningham
I would like to thank everyone: my sponsors, my team at Concrete Jungle and the beautiful ladies at Main Events. This is my first time in Canada and I have fought all over the world but this is my first time fighting here. I want to thank the Heavenly Father, the God Almighty. I have a mission to complete on Saturday night, like when I was in the Navy. Come Saturday it is time to go to work. The preparation is done; it is fight time.
Isaac “Golden Boy” Chilemba
First of all I want to thank God. I want to thank everyone who is here today. I want to thank HBO, Main Events, Interbox, my opponent, Vasily Lepikhin, and his team, my manager, Jodi Solomon, and my trainer, Buddy McGirt; I appreciate all of the support. I want to thank HBO. I am so happy to be back on HBO. I am looking forward to it. We worked hard and had a good camp. Lepikhin is a good fighter. A challenge like this is what I live for. You won’t be disappointed with this show on Saturday night.
Vasily “The Professor” Lepikhin
Thanks everybody for coming here. It is a pleasure to be boxing here for the first time. Thanks to HBO, my promoters, Kathy Duva and German Titov, and my manager, Egis Klimas, for this opportunity. This is big show and I am happy to open this big event on HBO. It was great preparation and training in California. I have good feeling and am very happy. Thank you to Isaac Chilemba for taking this fight. Thank you to my father, Andrey Lepikhin, who is also my trainer for helping me get here. My brother is coming today; he is my cut man. We are ready to fight.
Kathy Duva, CEO of Main Events
Thank you. This is the sixth time that Sergey Kovalev has fought on HBO. It seems like yesterday he had his first fight on HBO. This is going to be the first fight (on HBO) for these three gentlemen and second for Isaac Chilemba. It is a packed card from top to bottom. These men are going to entertain you on Saturday night. They have worked hard to get to this point in their careers where they are finally fighting on HBO. This puts a lot of pressure on them to perform well on Saturday night. Also I want to wish congratulations to our matchmaker, Jolene Mizzone, for putting together this amazing card. I think every one of these fights is 50-50 match-up. I know everyone will enjoy these fights. The trainers for these fights are some of the top trainers in the world. The former world champion, Buddy McGirt, is training Isaac Chilemba. Andrey Lepikhin is here training his son, Vasily Lepikhin, and Dmitry Mikhaylenko. Abel Sanchez, the great trainer who works with middleweight world champion Gennady Golovkin, will be here training Nadjib Mohammedi. Lee Campbell is working with the great Don Turner because his own trainer couldn’t make it here. Victor Petrochenko is training Czar Glazkov. And another legendary trainer, the great Naazim Richardson, is working with Steve Cunningham. We will have great match-ups in the ring and great match-ups in the corners. I want to thank HBO for giving these gentlemen this opportunity. In addition to Egis Klimas, I want to thank the two other great managers who helped to make these fights happen. First the manager of Steve Cunningham, his spectacular wife, Livvy Cunningham, and Jodi Solomon, who manages Isaac Chilemba.
Jean Bedard, President of Interbox
We will please ask that the boxers not wear their hats during the face-to-face (laughing). Thank you very much to all of the boxers that will be participating in this great event on Saturday. We will have a great event and a great crowd at the Centre Bell.
Egis Klimas, Manager of Czar Glazkov, Vasily Lepikhin and Dmitry Mikhaylenko
Thank you. This is a really good town. I am really glad to be here. This is going to be a great night of boxing on Saturday. I can’t remember when three televised HBO fights had three Russian and Eastern European fighters. When I started in this business a long time ago with my friend, Don Turner, I could not get my Russian fighters on television. I was begging everyone to put my fighters on their cards. Sergey Kovalev was boxing in basements. Me and Don Turner would sit in the car and drive around the country to put them in fights. No network would recognize their talents. All of our hard work has finally paid off. Saturday night we have three Russian and Ukrainian fighters fighting on HBO. If anyone told me this would happen one day, I would never have believed it. All of these bouts are very competitive. Lepikhin versus Chilemba is a 50-50 fight and Glazkov versus Cunningham is 50-50 as well. This is an eliminator fight which means that the winner will face Klitschko. One of these guys has the opportunity to become a world champion. I want to thank Kathy Duva for doing such a great job with these guys. I want to thank Interbox for organizing this event; it has been a lot of work getting us all here. I want to thank HBO for this opportunity. Most of all I want to thank my boxers, my fighters, without them I wouldn’t be here. Thank you for doing such a good job. Thank you to media, photographers and everybody else for being here today.
German Titov, Co-Promoter of Vasily Lepikhin and Dmitry Mikhaylenko
I would like to thank Kathy Duva. We are working with Main Events to promote Dmitry Mikhaylenko and Vasily Lepikhin for the last six months. In those short six months, this will be the third bout for each fighter. Both were already featured on NBCSN and in six months she was able to get Lepikhin on HBO. This is a great results for HBO. I want to thank HBO for this opportunity and our partners at Interbox.
Dierry Jean
It been 30 days of abstinence for me; I have an alcohol problem. I had a great camp and am in top form. I worked really hard in camp. I saw a couple of his [Reyes’s] fights. He is a brawler but I am able to adapt to anything. I don’t think this fight is going last the distance.
Carlos Manuel Reyes
I am a brawler. It is going to be an epic fight. I will do the very best I can to have a great fight.
Yves Ulysse Junior
I was there for the [Jean] Pascal-[Lucien] Bute fight and now I am here for [Sergey] Kovalev-[Jean] Pascal. Wow, this is great. I am so proud and happy to be working with Interbox. I love boxing.
Miguel Antoine
This is a good opportunity for me. I was out of the ring for a few years but now I am back. It is so beautiful here and I am going to put on a good show on Saturday.
Dmitry “The Mechanic” Mikhaylenko
Thank you. This is going to be a good fight. Thank you to everybody. I want to thank my promoters for giving me this opportunity and my trainer, Andrey Lepikhin. This is a great country and I happy to be here. I am happy to be on this card with my countryman Sergey Kovalev. I will show a good fight on Saturday.
David Theroux
I want to thank Interbox. It will be great on Saturday.
