FINAL OFFER – WBO champ Rose Volante given 24 hours to agree to Katie Taylor unification
WBO lightweight titlist Rose Volante [14(8)-0] has been given a 24 hour deadline to accept a unification with WBA-IBF champ Katie Taylor.
Manager Brian Peters has pitched a hardball at the reluctant Brazilian as extended negotiations continued to drag.
It had been hoped that Volante would be confirmed as Taylor’s next opponent today at a media lunch but a deal was not reached in time for the proposed St Patrick’s Weekend fight in Philadelphia.
The South American 36-year-old’s hesitance has frustrated Peters who has now put forward a final take-it-or-leave-it offer with a deadline that falls due this evening.
“Volante, she was given 24 hours up until tonight, it’s gone on long enough” Peters revealed to the assembled Irish media at the County Club in Dunshaughlin.
“She was supposed to fight us there in the last fight and there’s been heavy talks on it.”
“Katie Taylor’s career is not going to be held up by any other fighter. It’s just unfortunate.”
“By this time tomorrow, Volante will be in or out. We originally thought that we’d have it today to announce it.”
Peters understands that Volante is trying to ensure the biggest purse possible from a fight where she would be an extremely heavy underdog but warns that ‘The Queen Rose’ is in danger of taking her demands too far.
“To a degree, yes [I understand].”
“But, when they are being offered life-changing money, more than their whole career, 10, 15 times more than they have been offered, it does have to come to a stage where you go ‘look, enough’s enough’, you can’t be held to ransom.”
“These fights, they [only] generate so much money. Some of these people you’re dealing with, they are not realistic and they’re not used to dealing at certain levels.”
“They just want more money. There’s always enough for the needy, never enough for the greedy so it’s just a case of they are getting their moment in the spotlight and they are just not used to it.”
Taylor [12(5)-0] had hoped to take on Volante at Madison Square Garden at the weekend but instead ended up defeating WBC super featherweight champ Eva Wahlstrom in a ver entertaining fight at the New York venue.
The Sao Paulo fighter is now being approached one more final for the proposed Tevin Farmer v Jono Carroll undercard in Philly.
Reiterating his preferred plan for the next 18 months, Peters outlined how “ideally, our line up would be Rose Volente WBO champion, WBC champion Persoon, and Amanda Serrano, [Cecilia] Braekhus, Holly Holm.”
“There’s five big fights, enough to keep us going for a year or two. Then you’ve some of the other younger girls coming through.”
“We’ve stated loads of times we want to be undisputed champion. Look, we’ll see what happens.”
Volante won the pink belt last December with an upset over Brenda Carabajal in Argentina and has defended it twice at home with stoppages over relatively weak opposition in Panamanian Lourdes Borbua and Colombian Yolis Franco.
