Domination in America, Starting from being a Boxing Champion-Chapter 605 - 452: Two Women Chatting Face to Face

"Link, the next boxing match is scheduled,"

Just as Link put down his phone, Francois Duval called him to inform him about the next match.

After the Hong Kong Island WBA Light Heavyweight challenge, Francois Duval began discussions with the agencies behind the other three world champions from the four major organizations

to propose a world champion title unification bout.

Start with a two-on-two fight, and the winners from these fights will face each other in the final bout, with the ultimate victor becoming the new dominator of the Light Heavyweight division?

This proposal was rejected by the three other agencies; though a unification fight sounds cool, it is actually brutal.

Since they are all world champions, their abilities aren't much different from one another, more precisely, only a few punches apart.

No one had complete confidence in defeating the other.

Those who were confident had already issued challenges to their rivals, trying to defeat them and take all the Golden Belts to become the dominator of the division.

They didn't need to wait for Link to make a proposal.

Because of this lack of confidence, there was a mutual non-aggression pact among the world champions, maintaining peace.

Each year, they would train peacefully and participate in one or two title defenses. If they could defend their titles successfully for several years, they could become boxing stars and make money comfortably.

The last thing the boxing world wanted was to face a boxer like Link, ambitious and powerful, with a ferocity that could annihilate anything in his path.

He was like the mid to late '80s Tyson, the '90s Roy Jones, and the 2000s Mayweather.

Facing such boxers, one had to either accept the challenge or choose to dodge; nobody wanted to be someone else's stepping stone.

Dodging meant giving up the Golden Belt and vacating the champion spot, letting others compete for it. While this might seem disgraceful, it was effective,

because boxing heavily tests a boxer's mental toughness. A boxer who has never been defeated or knocked out has a good mentality and full of confidence in a match.

But a defeated boxer will carry that shadow in the ring.

Avoiding fights is also considered a tactic in the boxing world.

For example, in early 1992, Lennox Lewis successfully knocked out 'Razor' Ruddock in a championship challenger match, obtaining the mandatory challenger status for the WBC Heavyweight Champion.

The reigning WBC Champion Riddick Bowe, to avoid facing Lennox Lewis, voluntarily relinquished his WBC Golden Belt.

During '95/'96, WBC Champion Lewis faced Tyson's sparring partner McCall and was defeated by 'Atomic Bull' McCall. Later, McCall lost the belt to Britain's 'King Kong' Frank Bruno, who was then knocked out by Tyson. Tyson reclaimed the WBC Heavyweight title in '96.

Lewis once again gained the challenger status in the championship matches, which was mandatory.

At that time, Tyson, planning to fight WBA Champion Bruce Seldon in a unification bout first, chose to pay $4 million to avoid Lewis and postponed the fight.

After Tyson overcame his opponent in the unification bout and won the WBA Heavyweight belt, he faced the challenge from Lewis again and opted to relinquish the WBC Golden Belt to vacate the position.

Lewis, after defeating his old rival McCall once more, became the WBC Heavyweight champion again.

The fight between Lewis and Tyson occurred in 2002, with Lewis knocking out Tyson in the eighth round.

Now, the three light heavyweight champions faced the same situation as Tyson and Riddick Bowe when dealing with Lennox Lewis, possibly even worse than facing Lewis.

Because Link had never been defeated before, not only had he not lost, but he had also finished all but one of his past 23 professional fights within the first three rounds, except for the fight with Tyson.

Fighting Link meant getting beaten and becoming a stepping stone for Link.

But avoiding a fight with Link also meant giving up the World Champion title and losing a hefty sum of fight purses.

To fight or not to fight was the dilemma facing the current three champions and their agencies.

After several discussions among the agencies, Golden Boy Promotions' WBC Champion Bernard Hopkins agreed to accept the challenge under the condition that the prize money be split 70-30, with the larger share going to the winner and even the loser taking a 30% share.

The date was set for October 15, and the location was Seoul, South Korea.

The agencies of the other two champions had yet to respond, so Francois suggested that Link participate in the WBO Light Heavyweight championship challenge in September to secure mandatory match status. The IBF challenge had already taken place and would need to wait until next year.

Counting these two fights, Link had five matches to attend this year, so there was no need to rush.

Link accepted Francois' proposal.

However, Francois warned him to be cautious. According to his intelligence, a saying in the boxing world suggested that to defeat Link, one must resort to any means necessary during the fight, preferably by using foul tactics to provoke him and disrupt his rhythm for a chance to turn defeat into victory.

An even more aggressive view was that against Link, one should fight fire with fire, tooth for a tooth, using the most ruthless means to engage him.

From these rumors, one could sense everyone's fear of him but also foresee that his opponents would become increasingly crazy, and the fights even more brutal. Link's journey to continue winning would also become tougher.

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"Alright, I understand,"

Link responded and hung up the phone, ready to change into his gear and head to the gym for training, just as he saw Ivanka coming out with a small handbag.

Dressed in a sleeveless, round-neck paneled dress that fell to her knees, wearing flesh-colored stockings and matching champagne-colored high heels, her body was curvaceously fitting the outfit. Her beautiful face was delicately made-up, adorned with a platinum necklace, and she smelled wonderfully.