London - PROMOTER Mick Hennessy has come out and ridiculed any suggestion from Mike Perez that he deserves a shot at British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion Tyson Fury.
Hennessy is working towards unbeaten Fury returning to the ring in November on the back of an exciting fifth round stoppage of American Nicolai Firtha at the King's Hall last Saturday night.
Cork-based Perez, from Cuba, has come out and challenged Fury to a dust-up but promoter Hennessy says he can “forget about it”.
Hennessy commented: “Clearly somebody's little cage has bee rattled in Ireland after Tyson's great win at the weekend and from what I can see it is the people around him who are mouthing off, not Perez. I would be surprised if it was Perez because when Tyson was an amateur he gave him two very bad beatings in sparring and there were plenty of witnesses to it.
“That was when Perez was already a pro and Tyson was out of shape and a raw amateur. Since then we offered Perez the chance to fight Tyson at the King's Hall and after verbally agreeing to the fight his people then turned it down in order to fight Jonathan Banks on the Odyssey Arena show a week earlier in Belfast and ended up not boxing on either show. Clearly the people around him are desperate to get him a fight but it won't be on the back of Tyson Fury.
“Anyone who knows anything about boxing will know that Tyson is in a completely different league to Perez. This isn't three three-minute rounds like the amateurs or the one-night tournament he was involved in, it's a 12-round fight and Tyson would badly expose him.
“He had his chance to fight Tyson, talked a good game but didn't follow through so he has missed the boat. We're not here to be messed about, Tyson is moving on. So Perez, or whoever it is, can shoot his mouth off all he wants but he's just not in our plans now.”