TRINIDAD, DUVA'S MAKES IT OFFICIAL

by Pedro Fernandez

Earlier this week, fighters.com broke the news that unbeaten IBF welterweight champion Felix Trinidad would sign a promotional pact with Main Events on Friday.

Kreskin the journalist was right again, and on Friday afternoon, the Duva family headed by father Lou, son Dino, and sister in law Kathy, pulled off a major coup in obtaining the rights to the unbeaten Puerto Rican sensation.

The pact is for eight fights, and calls for a minimum of $30 million in purses. The first fight will be against unbeaten WBA counterpart Ike Quartey in a match that HBO has said they will televise.

Trinidad's legal team feels they have no ties to Felix's previous promoter Don King. Even though there is a stipulation in their contract that automatically renews the pact for two years, if Tito was still champion come June 11, 1998.

King was livid about "Tito jumping ship" and is expected to litigate this matter. Another one of his fighters, Julio Cesar Chavez had left King to fight for Bob Arum's Top Rank recently. A suit was filed last week.

What is interesting is that Arum, a lawyer formerly with the Justice Department feels that Felix's deal with King is still good. In what might be self serving legal advice, Arum feels the contract King had with Julio wasn't valid.

For those of you waiting on a Trinidad-De La Hoya matchup, the date I'm hearing is May 8, 1999.

Pedro Fernandez

Note: Join Pedro Fernandez, "the undisputed heavyweight champion of the radio airwaves" as he defends his title of nearly 13 years on Ring Talk this Saturday at 11:06 PM ET on the Talk America Radio Network.

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