MONTE-CARLO MILLION DOLLAR SUPER 4 PARTICIPANTS WRAPPING UP TRAINING CAMP PREPARATIONS HEAD TO MONACO SATURDAY
New York, NY (3/22/13) – Tomorrow, all four participants for the much-anticipated Monte-Carlo Million Dollar Super 4 Tournament depart their respective training camps and head to beautiful Monaco, in anticipation of the opening round of the tournament taking place on Saturday, March 30, at the Chapiteau de Fontvieille.
The event in Monaco is headlined by red-hot WBA middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin (25-0, 22KO’s) defending his title against former world champion Nobuhiro Ishida (24-8-2, 9KO’s). The opening round of the Super 4 tournament matches Edwin Rodriguez (22-0, 15KO’s) against Argentinean Olympian Ezequiel Osvaldo Maderna (19-0, 13KO’s) and former two-division world champion Zsolt Erdei (33-0, 18KO’s) squaring off against Denis Grachev (12-1-1, 8KO’s). The card will be distributed in the United States and Canada on PPV by Integrated Sports Media for live viewing at 3:00 p.m. ET/12:00 p.m. PT on both cable and satellite Pay-Per-View.
Below are quotes from each fighter from their last day of training:
EDWIN RODRIGUEZ (L) W/ STABLEMATE BRYAN VERA
“This has been an amazing training camp,” said Rodriguez. “Ronnie Shields and the guys at Peak Performance in Houston have me in amazing shape. I am ready to get into the ring and show the world who I am and what I am made of. I want to thank Golden Gloves, my promoter DiBella Entertainment and my manager Larry Army Jr. for this opportunity. I encourage everyone to tune in on March 30 to see me at the top of my game in the biggest fight of my career.”
EZEQUIEL OSVALDO MADERNA
“I have had a great training camp and I am excited to finally be departing for Monaco for what is going to be the most important challenge of my life,” said Maderna. “We have wrapped up the final stages of training camp, and, come March 30, I will be ready for a war against Edwin Rodriguez.”
ZSOLT ERDEI TRAINING W/ FUTURE HALL-OF-FAME TRAINER FRITZ SDUNEK
“I am very happy that the Hungarian fans will have a chance to once again see me fight live and in person. It just multiplies my strength and will to win,” said the former two-division champion Zsolt Erdei, regarding the large number of Hungarian fans making the trip to Monaco.
Erdei continued, “I want to prove that the old man is not an old man. So far everything is going well. I have had no problem with my weight, the shape I am in is almost disturbingly good. The bumps are there, of course, over the many years of fighting, but I know that above anything else, my power is still there, and Grachev will find that out on March 30. I’m going to prove that I am still one of the top fighters in the world.”
DENIS GRACHEV
“This has been the hardest train camp that I have ever had. I have already made my plans to be back in Monaco in July,” stated a determined Grachev.
Excitement is building ahead of the international boxing spectacular, the Monte-Carlo Million Dollar Super 4, which takes place in the famous Mediterranean city next weekend.
The boxers begin arriving from all over the world early next week and will come face to face for the first time at a media conference at the Casino de Monte-Carlo on Tuesday evening. The press conference will include Gennady Golovkin, the WBA and IBO middleweight champion, challenger Nobuhiro Ishida, plus Super 4 contestants Edwin Rodriguez, Ezequiel Maderna, Denis Grachev and Zsolt Erdei. Sergei Rabchenko and Adriano Nicchi, contestants for the European junior middleweight title bout, will also appear, plus undercard fighters Junior Makabu and Jean Marc Monrose. All together, nine separate countries will be represented at the gigantic international final presser.
On Wednesday afternoon, March 27, the boxers will engage in public workouts, also at the casino, with fans encouraged to lend their support.
The weigh-in will take place at 6pm on the eve of the tournament, with the Casino de Monte-Carlo again offering a suitably classic backdrop to this historic event.
I’m very excited, the phone hasn’t stopped ringing,” said promoter Rodney Berman, of Golden Gloves. “We have broadcasters from all over the world taking the fight and we’re expecting many fans from the boxers’ countries to attend. This event has really struck a chord.”
The “Monte-Carlo Million Dollar Super 4” and Golovkin’s middleweight title defense will be distributed in the United States and Canada by Integrated Sports Media for live viewing at 3:00 p.m. ET/12:00 p.m. PT on both cable and satellite Pay-Per-View via iN Demand, DIRECTV, DISH and Avail-TVN in the United States and in Canada via Bell TV for a suggested retail price of only $24.95. In addition, the event will be available via online Pay-Per-View at:
http://www.gfl.tv/Events/Fight/Boxing/Gennady_Golovkin_vs_Nobuhiro_Ishida/1896
The event is promoted by Rodney Berman’s Golden Gloves. The Golovkin-Ishida bout is promoted in association with K2 Promotions, while the Rodriguez-Maderna and Erdei-Grachev bouts are promoted in association with DiBella Entertainment.
Tickets can be purchased by contacting the SBM Reservations Department by phone at: +377 98 06 36 36 (10 am to 7 pm) or email: ticketoffice@sbm.mc.
As in September, I once again ran out of gas in the 10th & 11th championship rounds of October & November with this column, but I recovered to complete them and will unleash a few more flurries to close out the 12th and final round.
In the first week of October, Hassan N’Dam won a UD over Curtis Stevens in an eliminator for the right to challenge Jermaine Taylor who defeated aging Sam Soliman to regain the IBF Middleweight title. How Taylor even earned this title shot is another story altogether, but it is all irrelevant as he is now the champion. However he will not have too much time to savor his victory as he has assault and battery charges pending against him and an upcoming court fight that may turn out to be the toughest fight of his life, just when things started to look up for him in boxing, we wish him luck.
