Last Thursday, I was invited to review a book on Odia Ofeimun, one of Africa’s leading poets and public intellectuals, a committed, “empathetic scholar” as Professor Tunji Olaopa describes him elsewhere. Our own Odia is not a man to be disappointed, he is our “Baba”, our ‘Owalen” as many of his brothers from his Iruekpen clan or Esan West kingdom of Edo State call him. But Lagos, the subject of Ofeimun’s anthology: “Lagos Of the Poets” can be often multi-dimensionally treacherous, the product of the chaos that is built into its structure, sustained by the inability to transform the city to serve the purpose of those who live therein on a sustainable basis. Professor Wumi Raji and Kunle Ajibade had been on my matter, in literal “Yorubanglish.” I promised them I would be there and indeed immediately I stepped off the set of The Morning Show on Arise TV, I started heading out towards Rights Hall, Adeniyi Jones Street, Ikeja, Head Office of the CDHR, the venue of the event. The car was properly fuelled and that is a statement not to be taken lightly in Tinubu’s Nigeria. 

But the road laid in wait, not for a sacrifice, but in mischief. The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) had served notice that it would embark on “a total and indefinite strike” on Tuesday October 3 in protest over the decision of the Tinubu administration to remove fuel subsidy, which resulted in the pump price of fuel jumping up by over 300%. Organized Labour raised its objections and at negotiation meetings presented a set of demands before the Federal Government. The same Federal Government set up a Presidential Steering Committee and sub-committees but this yielded no results as government officials abandoned the negotiating table, and resorted to appeals to Labour to be patient and understanding. Understand what? Labour issued a 21-day warning notice. The government kept begging. 

The NLC later embarked on a two-day warning strike on September 5 and 6.  Government officials including the Minister of Labour and Employment and the Vice President at the last meeting of the National Economic Council (NEC) continued to preach without addressing the issues. By that Thursday when I set out for Ikeja, the entire stretch of Awolowo Road was blocked by queues at petrol stations. People had embarked on panic buying of petrol, ahead of the announced Labour strike, with NUPENG having declared that all petrol stations would be shut down. I had to struggle through the traffic, endure the terrible potholes on the Third Mainland Bridge, which had been shut down on many occasions in the recent past for repairs, but where shortly after the repairs, the same potholes would return, putting motorists on that bridge in a state of prayer with fervent hope that the day would not come when those potholes would become craters and vehicles on that bridge would begin to drop into the ocean below. An imaginable calamity! 

I finally made it to Ikeja to meet even more difficult traffic hold-ups. I was lucky it wasn’t one of those days when the rains fell. When it rains in Lagos, it could be practically impossible to travel from one side of the city to the other. By the time I reached Rights House, the book presentation ceremony had begun. It was well attended: Adeyinka Olumide-Fusika, SAN, Chair of the occasion, Professor Kayode Soremekun, former Vice Chancellor of the Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, Femi Falana SAN, Professor Mike Ikhariale, my former teacher at the Lagos State University (LASU), Professor Akin Onigbinde, my former colleague at Ogun State University (now OOU), Senator Yunus Akintunde representing Oyo Central, Molara Wood, writer and editor; Managing Director of The Guardian, Martins Oloja, Kabiru Aregbesola, representing his father Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, former Minister of the Interior, who later joined us straight from the airport. Editors. Reporters. Poets. Novelists. Word merchants. I met all the Mainland people already seated. The city of Lagos inflicts psychological terror on residents with its structural divisiveness. I know people who live and work on the Island who will never cross the bridge to the Mainland and vice versa. I was not even allowed to take a glass of water before Professor Sylvester Odion-Akhaine, the compere, announced that it was good I had arrived “in time” or “on time” – I arrived late anyway- and I should immediately present my review. It was an assignment I was glad to take seriously.     

One of Odia Ofeimun’s famous books, the product of a 2003 lecture at the University of Ibadan, is a collection of essays titled “Taking Nigeria Seriously” in which he reflects on issues about the making and the unmaking of Nigeria, the contradictions that have turned an otherwise promising country, of enormous potentials, into the very opposite of its original value, or perhaps something dangerously close to that due to the absence of enabling leadership opportunities, and an inevitable descent into the lower depths.  Those who know Odia, the title of the third part of the book under review: “The Odia We Know”, know him to be a man who takes everything that he does seriously. It is this single-minded devotion to his craft, and to his environment, to society that has been a defining characteristic of his polyvalent genius, encountered in virtually every facet of his persona as a poet, writer, polemicist, journalist, dramatist, producer, essayist, publisher, literary critic and entrepreneur. The last definition may seem odd to many but it is true, for as Chairman and Founder of the Hornbill House of the Arts, Odia has had a long experience running an enterprise, even if the main substance of that enterprise is literature and ideas, not money. Hornbill House has nonetheless produced profit in that regard: it published Tade Ipadeola’s The Sahara Testaments, winner of the NLNG Nigeria Prize for Literature, 2013. It is also the publisher of Obari Ogomba’s Grit, a play that has been shortlisted for the 2023 NLNG Literature Prize, both a firm confirmation of how Odia Ofeimun takes literature seriously too, not just as creator but also as promoter of the genres. 

While Odia Ofeimun takes what he does seriously, it is noteworthy that the publication under review is an affirmation of the man himself being taken seriously. Essentially, the book – Odia Ofeimun: In Search of a Common Morality – Essays, Tributes and Conversations (Ile-Ife: Obafemi Awolowo University Press, 307 pp.)  is the product of a conference in honour of the subject, on March 16, 2020, on the occasion of his 70^th birthday, held at the University of Lagos. Three years later, the presentations at that conference and other materials have now been put together for posterity in a book form by a troika of editors and scholars: Wumi Raji, Sylvester Odion-Akhaine and Akin Adesokan. The editors have done a praiseworthy and remarkable job of putting a fence around that year 2000 septuagenarian celebration, and whereas they claim that “the readers will be encountering for the first time what represents more or less a sustained critical engagement with Ofeimun’s writings”, I doubt if indeed this is the first effort of its kind. I refer the editors to an earlier book: Vicky Mnguember Sylvester (ed.) Critical Perspectives on Odia Ofeimun (Lagos, Ibadan: Malthouse Press, 2012, 271pp) with contributors including Kole Omotoso, Onookome Okome, Tanure Ojaide and Effiok Uwatt. But whereas this earlier book focused mainly on Odia Ofeimun’s texts, what can be seen at first glance in the latest appraisal is the extensive scope of the content, the depth of the analysis, the array of scholars and friends taking Odia Ofeimun seriously, and the focus on not just the literature, but also informed portraits of the man and his life and times, that is a near-balanced coverage of the literary and the biographical.

It is not difficult to see why this is so. Odia Ofeimun is one of the most impactful, productive, influential public intellectuals that Nigeria has produced in the past four decades, with his contributions to poetry, journalism, literary criticism, public affairs and stage presentations forming a formidable part of the canon. His influence is cross-disciplinary, multi-dimensional – politics, literature, drama, activism, journalism, culture, and as a person, he remains one of the most actively engaged citizens of our time. What further stands him out is his courage, his conviction and the sheer daredevilry with which he reinvents himself. Long before the Labour Party became such a movement in contemporary Nigerian politics, Odia Ofeimun had made an attempt to become a state Governor on the platform of the same party in pursuit of his oft-stated optimism that Nigeria can be rescued and saved through direct involvement of the “right persons” in the governance process. 

The book is divided into four parts, with a total of 18 chapters. The reference in the title to common morality is extracted from Akin Adesokan’s “The Fragmented Poetics of a Common Morality” in Part I titled “Critical Essays” – seven in total in this section. It would appear however that the common morality that is referred to is the humanistic temper that underlines Odia Ofeimun’s writings: his deep interrogation of what makes us human, what makes us less human and what could make us more human, across all the spectrums of human experience. These seven critical essays examine Odia’s writings, not the entire oeuvre but his essays, his poetry infused by what Idaevor Bello and Lizzy Onyeiwu call “the tradition of resistance writing”: “The Poet Lied”, “A Handle for the Flutist”, “Under African Skies”, “London Letter,” “Go Tell the Generals”, “I will ask questions with stones if they take my voice.” The city is a central symbol and referent in Odia Ofeimun’s writings. In “A Melting Pot: Representations of the Lagos Imaginary”, Professor Wumi Raji examines Ofeimun’s book of selected poetry, “Lagos of the Poets” (2010).

The discursive, research-oriented tone of the critical essays is sustained further in Professor G.G. Darah’s “Odia Ofeimun and the Dialectics of Nigeria’s Long Revolution” and Sylvester Odion-Akhaine’s review of “the Politics of Odia Ofeimun” both drawing attention to and exploring his interventions with regards to issues of nation-building, federalism, national conference and the centrifugal tensions in the Nigerian process. It may be said that this first part of the book for deliberate, obvious reasons is the more rigorous part given the academic, research-based flavour of the contributions. Two poems follow - by Professor Niyi Osundare and Okinba Launko – Professor Femi Osofisan’s nom de plume.  The editors describe this section of the book “as an interlude”. Osundare and Okinba Launko are Ofeimun’s contemporaries, members together, with Kole Omotoso, Bode Sowande, Tanure Ojaide, Funso Aiyejina, Abubakar Gimba, Festus Iyayi, Ken Saro-Wiwa, Tunde Fatunde, Zaynab Alkali, Buchi Emecheta…of the second generation of writers who helped to shape the ideological character of what came later.  

A much easier offering is Chapter III of the book titled: “The Odia We Know”, a collection of friendly, appreciative tributes to the subject by Owei  Lakemfa, Rauf Aregbesola, Uzor Maxim Uzoatu, Yewande Omotoso, Omowunmi Segun, Chris Dunton, Ogaga Ifowodo – presented in form of personal encounters and relationships with the poet, revealing how in the course of his career within the community, Odia as he is fondly called, or Uncle Odia as Yewande Omotoso and Chris Dunton refer to him, has been a source of inspiration and a mentor to many not just through his craft but also his example and generosity of spirit.

In Chapter 5, Professor Biodun Jeyifo’s keynote address during Odia’s 70^th birthday is reproduced, an even-handed, first-hand portrait of the subject by a fellow-traveller through the decades titled “When Poverty is Wealth – in Connection with the Word (for Odia Ofeimun at 70).” Chapter IV is titled “Conversations” and here in three Chapters: 16-18, we hear directly from the celebrant himself in three major interviews: his romance with the word, his life, literature and struggles – a more directly biographical section of the book which lends it a fresh momentum and appeal through story-telling and the vehicle of reminiscences.

There is no doubt that apart from documenting an important milestone in the life of Odia Ofeimun, a poet and writer of the first rank whose love for literature and language is in a class of its own, this book will generate further discussions about his art and thoughts as well as interest in his entire oeuvre. Few writers have been as prodigious and as compelling. It is important that the essays in the book do not convey any hint of hagiography or undeserved praise - for although it was Ofeimun’s 70^th birthday, the commentators and critics know him well enough to understand that he could not be swayed by any form of flattery. Ogaga Ifowodo tells him to write the long-awaited, long-promised book on Awo, otherwise “Nigeria would not forgive him.” Omowunmi Segun’s portraiture of Ofeimun at poetry reading sessions in a critical but humorous tone, is right on point, a well-pointed jab below the belt, but it speaks more to the man’s passion for the word, written or spoken.    

Adesokan, one of the editors, tells us that Odia Ofeimun is a writer that we will continue to encounter deep into the future. He is right. Ofeimun’s place in the world of letters is more than assured. After more than 40 books of essays, poetry, criticism and public affairs analysis, we can only look forward to a feast and a harvest of more words from his fecund imagination. The present book does not in any way, comprehensive as it may seem, exhaust the many possibilities for analysis that Odia Ofeimun’s work offers: his unionism for example as Secretary General and later President of the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), and the many battles he had to fight; his journalism before and after the military era as columnist/member of the editorial board of The Guardian and later as Chairman of The News Newspaper, and of course his practical involvement in politics either as Private Secretary to Chief Obafemi Awolwo, or as a Labour Party Gubernatorial aspirant who had progressive ideas about how society could be organized for growth and development but was limited by his own idealism in a political environment where commerce and vainglory prevail. 

As we look forward to Odia Ofeimun’s continued service in the literary vineyard, the editors have enriched our libraries and the growing bibliography on Odia Ofeimun’s writings by publishing this book that should be of interest to students and teachers of literature, culture and politics alike. People like Odia are hardly ever remembered when national honours and other diadems are given out, mostly to the undeserved, but it is his kind who speak and write truth to power who represent the vanishing oases of sanity and humanity in this land where the people’s hope for a better tomorrow is stained by the blood of the innocent and the wickedness of persons in high places. It is about time Nigeria and Nigerians began to take themselves seriously. 

Inter Miami was inches away from a victory without Lionel Messi on Sunday.

David Ruiz’s right-footed shot in the 97th minute hit the top of the crossbar and bounced downward and away from the net in what could have been a goal that likely would have given Inter Miami the win and some much-needed help in the MLS playoff race.

Instead, Inter Miami’s postseason hopes remain fluid and uncertain – just like Messi’s playing status.

A header by Inter Miami’s Tomás Avilés tied the match three minutes into stoppage time, New York City FC’s Santiago Rodriguez scored in the 77th minute, and Inter Miami finished with a 1-1 draw on Saturday night at DRV PNK Stadium.

Messi sat pensively, wearing a pink shirt and a gold watch, behind the Inter Miami bench while missing his third straight game for the club, and fourth overall in September.

A lingering injury, the details murky and undisclosed, has kept Messi out of action and he’s considered day to day. Inter Miami’s next match is Wednesday night against Chicago Fire FC at Soldier Field.

Inter Miami coach Tata Martino tried to dismiss a social media report stating Messi might have a hamstring tear, and that his MLS season could be over.

Martino, via translator, said time will tell “if what I say is right, or what the report says is right.”

“He feels better and better,” Martino said of Messi.

Inter Miami has begun to receive criticism for Messi’s layoff, understandably so with fans paying for expensive game tickets, travel arrangements, and merchandise during this recent stretch.

[Leadership]

Napoli’s social media executive, Alessio Fortino, has stepped down from his role amid the ongoing saga over the club’s trolling of Nigerian football star Victor Osimhen, on TikTok.

Osimhen, the club and Serie A’s leading scorer with 26 goals last season as Napoli won their first Scudetto in 33 years, was mocked in a TikTok video last week for missing a penalty in their 0-0 draw with Bologna.

The offensive video drew the ire of football fans across the world and led to Osimhen removing all Napoli-related posts from his Instagram account and his agent Roberto Calenda threatening legal action.

The Nigerian government also waded into the matter, saying it would reach out to the government of Italy, Napoli and Osimhen over the issue.

There were two videos, the first one showing the 24-year-old Super Eagles striker appealing for a penalty, with sped-up, child-like audio captioned ‘Gimme penalty please’ before showing him firing the spot-kick wide.

A second video from the club’s account compared Osimhen to a ‘coconut’ — widely viewed as a racial slur.
Although Osimhen has played in two matches since then and scored in both, and Napoli have claimed they meant no harm, Fortino has apparently paid with his job for the ill-advised action.

In a post via Instagram, Fortino said: “Today, after 805 days, my professional adventure with SSC Naples ends. For many this job would be comparable to a dream, for me it was simple daily reality: a reality built on commitment and fueled by the constant desire to learn and play.

“I cannot help but express my deepest gratitude to all the colleagues, collaborators, partners and supporters I’ve met along this long journey for making this experience so special.

“Leaving the company with a baggage of great memories and an excitement for the new adventures that lie ahead. Thanks again for everything and see you soon! Alessio.”

According to Italian outlet Il Corriere dello Sport, Osimhen is believed to have received a private apology from Napoli directors on Wednesday for the club’s behavior on social media.

[DailyTrust]

Arsenal eased to a 4-0 victory in the sun away at Bournemouth as Mikel Arteta’s side remain unbeaten and oozed class throughout.

Bukayo Saka headed home and Martin Odegaard made it 2-0 from the penalty spot in the first half, then Kai Havertz also converted a spot kick and Ben White scored late on as the Gunners won at a canter and it could have been seven or eight in their favor.

Arteta’s Arsenal have now picked up 17 points from a possible 21 to start the season as they’ve won five of their seven games.ARSENAL eased to a 4-0 victory in the sun away at Bournemouth as Mikel Arteta’s side remain unbeaten and oozed class throughout.

Bukayo Saka headed home and Martin Odegaard made it 2-0 from the penalty spot in the first half, then Kai Havertz also converted a spot kick and Ben White scored late on as the Gunners won at a canter and it could have been seven or eight in their favor.

Arteta’s Arsenal have now picked up 17 points from a possible 21 to start the season as they’ve won five of their seven games.

[Nation]

NIGERIA’S sports industry stakeholders have provided insights into why the country lost its bid to hold the 2025 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON).

Two North African countries, Algeria and Morocco, including Zambia, vied to host the tournament against a joint bid from Nigeria and Benin.

But Morocco eventually won the bid.

The North African side will host Africa’s flagship event for the second time, 35 years after the country hosted the competition in 1988.

Meanwhile, the rights for the 2027 edition were handed to a co-bid from Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.

The joint East African bid returns the tournament to the region for the first time since 1976.

They beat Botswana, Egypt and Senegal in a vote of the CAF executive committee.

Stakeholders’ reactions to Nigeria’s failed bid

A sports administrator, Peter Iweze, recalled how he and ex-international Segun Odegbami sought a joint bid for the country with South Africa ahead of the 2010 World Cup, saying they started the bid early.

He described Nigeria’s bid for the 2025 AFCON as impromptu, adding that early preparation would have conferred some advantages on the nation over its peers.

“We are not ready to do anything like that. Is that our priority? You don’t bid for events like that; you start early. When we bid for the World Cup for the West African joint bid, Odegbami and I went to the whole of West Africa. We took time for the World Cup in 2010; we started in 2002,” he said.

According to him, Nigeria is suffering from an economic downturn, and its failure to secure the hosting rights would help salvage its economy.

“So it is good savings for us. Right now, Nigerians are suffering. They don’t want unnecessary expenditure of funds. I am not surprised that we lost,” he said.

Also, a veteran sports journalist, Maxwell Kumoye, explained that hosting AFCON tournaments demands quality sporting infrastructures like good stadiums, airports and hotels.

He argued that the country could not boast of these.

“At the moment, look at the state of our facilities. What facilities were they putting forward to host AFCON besides UYO, Abuja, Stephen Keshi and Samuel Ogbemudia Stadiums?

“The stadiums in Lagos are nothing to write home about. They are not ready for major international events like AFCON. Yes, we may have hotels and airports, but our sporting facilities are below the mark,” he said.

He faulted the country’s bid, saying it was dead on arrival.

“We were thoroughly disgraced in the sense that we hurriedly put up that bid and indicated that it was dead on arrival from the start to the end.

“What did we do right? Certainly, we did not do anything right. Perhaps the board felt, ‘let’s put this together to tell the world we are doing something.’ For me, that bid had no substance. What was in that bid was that we were seeking the help of the Benin Republic to bid for our AFCON.

“Those doing this were not doing it for the country’s sake. They were doing it for their own to be relevant in the international scene that Nigeria is putting up a bid,” he added.

[ICIR]

In what was dubbed the first Undisputed versus Undisputed world championship fight in the modern four-belt era, Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez beat Jermel Charlo on points to defend his undisputed super-middleweight title Saturday night.

Alvarez used constant pressure to cut off the ring toward a seventh-round knockdown and dominant unanimous decision over Jermell Charlo to successfully retain his undisputed super middleweight crown.

Canelo, 33, secured a unanimous 119-108, 118-109 and 118-109 win over the American to defend his WBO, WBC, WBA and IBF belts at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

“I’m the best. Who’s better? Nobody can beat this Canelo,” he said.

Charlo was undisputed light-middleweight champion until he was stripped of his WBO belt when the fight started.

He suffered only the second knockdown and second defeat of his 38-fight career after stepping up in weight.

“I worked all the fight to go in the body,” said Canelo, who dropped Charlo with an overhand right.

“Then I changed the punch and that’s what happened. We worked for that.

“We know he’s a great fighter. He knows how to move in the ring and we worked that in the gym for three months.

“Three months in the mountains without my family, without everything.

“But I still love boxing. Boxing made me the person I am today. Boxing is my life,” Charlo stated.

[Leadership]

Former Manchester United captain, Gary Neville has called on the Premier League to introduce the semi-automated offside.

This follows a controversial incident in Tottenham Hotspurs’ 2-1 win over Liverpool on Saturday evening.

The Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) have apologized to Liverpool, admitting that Luis Diaz’s goal against Tottenham Hotspur should have stood.

Diaz broke in behind the Spurs defence before firing past Guglielmo Vicario into the bottom corner.

However the linesman had his flag up for offside. And although VAR intervened, the TV cameras didn’t show the offside lines, with the Colombian seemingly onside.

Neville tweeted: “Goal-line Technology and Offside have been the two pillars of accuracy with VAR.

“I’ve lost some confidence in the last month on offsides and this today erodes it further. Bring in the automated system straight away.”

When a semi-automated system is used, there is no need to draw or activate lines.

Instead, a virtual offside line is generated automatically in addition to accurately identifying skeleton points — including head, toes, upper arm and knees — on multiple players simultaneously.

[DailyPost]

What many people do not know about me is my relationship with the health sector.

Almost 20 years ago, I was invited to consult for the Nigerian Heart Foundation, NHF, on Sports (Golf specifically). That relationship eventually took me to Jomo Kenyatta University as part of a team of medical scholars researching ‘Active Transport’ in some African countries, including Nigeria. By the way, Active Transport is the quantum of physical activity a person does on a daily basis.

After that, the NHF facilitated my invitation as a resource person to the 13th World Public Health Congress in Ethiopia some years later, where I presented a paper on the effect of intensive sports on young children in my specialist sports ‘laboratory’ in Wasimi, Ogun State, an institution for boys and girls interested in combining their passion for sport with a sound education. The sports academy continues to flourish 17 years after, its products shining like a million stars wherever they perch. Many of them have enjoyed scholarships to several universities in the United States; a few have graduated and are now playing professional football in some European countries; some are in an Indian IT University gaining invaluable education and still playing their football; one played professional tennis in Europe; and another is, probably, the tallest basketball player in the world at the moment, plying his trade in Dubai.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Yusuf Tuggar, has warned against the maltreatment of Nigerians abroad.

Tuggar also said Nigerian sportsmen and women in the Diaspora must be treated with dignity.

The minister stated this on Friday against the background of a viral video from Napoli’s TikTok account trolling Super Eagles forward, Victor Osimhen, for missing a penalty kick in a match against Bologna.

In a statement signed by his media aide, Alkasim Abdulkadir, the minister said the government considered the life and dignity of every Nigerian in the Diaspora sacrosanct and deserving of respect and dignity in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

He said, “When we go about our duties, we should always remember Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.

“They are endowed with reason and conscience, and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

The minister added, “Napoli did not act in the spirit of brotherhood by mocking of her star player, Victor Osimhen, who was instrumental to the team winning the Serie A championship last season.”

Abdulkadir noted that the Federal Government and Nigeria’s embassies would continue to monitor happenings not only in Napoli, but around the world on how her sportsmen and women and all other citizens in the Diaspora were being treated, and would waste no time in seeking redress of such maltreatments.

British heavyweight champion Tyson Fury and Ukrainian champion Oleksandr Usyk have officially signed a contract that will see them fight in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

The fight was officially confirmed today, September 29, 2023, and is scheduled to take place on December 23 or be moved to early next year.

The 36-year-old Usyk is the WBA, WBO, and IBF champion, while the 35-year-old Fury is the reigning WBC champion.

Hence, the winner of the bout in Saudi Arabia will be the first undisputed heavyweight champion of the four-belt era.

Since Lennox Lewis defeated Evander Holyfield in 1999 to defend the WBA, WBC, and IBF championships, there hasn’t been an undisputed heavyweight bout in this manner.

Even though the fight has been signed and sealed, Fury must emerge unscathed in the fight against Francis Ngannou in a non-title match on October 28 in Riyadh.

Usyk, who has won all 21 of his professional fights, recently defeated Daniel Dubois in August to defend his belts.

As for Fury, the British boxer has won 33 of his 34 fights since turning professional in 2008, while only drawing once.

Queensbury promoter Frank Warren who is in charge of Fury’s brand, said, “Delighted to finally get this fight signed. This is the biggest fight that could be made in our sport.”

“The heavyweights always spark the imagination of the fans, and I have no doubt this will be the biggest boxing event of the century.”