Montell Griffin: "The last thing I have in mind is a defeat!"

Bremen/Las Vegas When the 29-year-old American Montell Griffin challenges Dariusz Michalczewski in Stadthalle Bremen for the German's WBO laurels on August 28^th, he will have more things on his mind than just collecting his purse.

"The last thing that I have in mind is a defeat," stated a confident Griffin from Las Vegas during a telephone interview. "I'm one of the best boxers in the game. I will just go out there and box and if I can hit him more than he can hit me I’m going to win. After I beat Michalczewski I want a third fight against Roy Jones. Our score is one-one so far."

Griffin celebrated the greatest success of his career back in March of 1997, when he embarrased the supposedly unbeatable Roy Jones Jr. for eight rounds. But, his ninth-round disqualification victory left an unpleasant taste.

"We had a great opportunity to win that fight by decision and not by disqualification," Tim Griffin reports. Tim, himself a professional fighter retiring in 1980, has supported Montell since his little brother‘s professional debut. "[Jones] doesn’t talk that much about that fight anymore, because he wants to forget that it happened. It was the closest Jones ever came to losing by decision."

Prior to his two fights against Jones, Griffin twice defeated two-division Champion James Toney. „I fought a former world champion with 50 fights and I had only 14 fights myself," Montell Griffin remembers. „Three months earlier he was considered one of best fighters, pound for pound. That’s the fight that put me on the scene. I’m pretty proud I won that one."

After the first fight against Jones, Montell Griffin split with his legendary trainer Eddie Futch. Currently Montell is trained by brother Tim and Thell Torrence at the Nevada Partners Gym in Las Vegas.

"We have seen Michalczewski‘s fight against Virgil Hill," says Tim Griffin. "He is a great Champion. He defeated Hill convincingly. We expect a great fight against Michalczewski and we are confident that we will go home with the title."

Fabian Weber
International Press Spokesman
Universum Box-Promotion GmbH
Am Stadtrand 27
22047 Hamburg
Germany
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