Team Caparello respond to Berridge claims
WORLD rated Kiwi Robert Berridge and his team have taken to social media, voicing their concern about ongoing negotiations with WBO light heavyweight champion Sergey Kovalev.
In a remarkable turn of events, Berridge’s team has hit-out at former foe Blake Caparello (19-0-1, 6 KOs) and his team, claiming they are trying to “muscle in” on their fight.
“The Duva’s seem like good people. I get the feeling from discussions that they are more than happy with Rob’s credentials as a challenger,” said Duco’s David Higgins, whose company promote Berridge, to Stuff.co.nz. “There have been discussions lately about a possible title fight, those discussion are ongoing.”
“But we got wind of Caparello trying to muscle in on that.”
Berridge’s manager Vasco Kovacevic also made a statement in regards to negotiations with Kovalev. However, unlike Higgins, who spoke only of negotiations with Kathy Duva and Main Events, Kovacevic took the opportunity to make negative comments about Caparello.
“Caparello is boring. He’s only knocked out two opponents in the last three years and he’s fought 11 times,” he said. “Rob’s been knocking out people left, right and centre. He’s currently ranked No 10 in the WBO and it’s no surprise Kovalev is interested in him.”
These statements where brought to light when Berridge (23-1-1, 19 KOs) publicised the aforementioned article on both his personal and fan pages on Facebook, with the title “dirty aussies”.
Team Caparello, headed by Caparello’s trainer and co-manager Sam Labruna reached out to Aus-Boxing, to respond to the negative statements made by Berridge and his representatives.
“He’s turned, we’re dirty Aussies now,” said Labruna in an exclusive interview with Aus-Boxing. “We looked after Berridge when he couldn’t get fights, we brought him to Australia and promoted some big fights for him – these things cost money.”
“The harsh thing he’s doing now, is bringing Australian’s into it, which is in pretty bad taste.”
Berridge, 29, was formerly managed by Brendan Bourke – who now co-manages Caparello. Funnily enough, it was Bourke who anchored the promotional deal to bring Berridge across to Duco Events. But since then, the relationship has been severed with Berridge cutting ties to Bourke.
“It’s amazing what these blokes are doing,” Labruna continued. “It was Brendan Bourke who came to us, when he was working for them (Berridge) and they couldn’t get fights. We happily took care of them. Brendan also looked after them and got them everything they wanted – and then they kicked him out.”
Labruna also revealed that Caparello, 27, who won the vacant IBO light heavyweight title last October – when he schooled Allan Green – offered to not only defend his since vacated title against Berridge in a rematch, but also in New Zealand.
“After the Green fight, we reached out to them about a possible rematch” Labruna explained. “We rang Duco and hounded them for three weeks, we even offered to go to New Zealand for the fight, we saw it as a good opportunity for both sides.”
“They got back to us and said they went to a vote and more of their team voted against than for, so that was it – they weren’t interested. They said the result would be the same, if not worse.”
Like Berridge, Caparello and his team have been chasing a title challenge against hard-hitting Russian Sergey Kovalev, who is struggling to secure competitive opponents. However, despite what is being reported, Labruna has stated they had no prior knowledge of Berridge’s mutual interest in Kovalev.
“As far as we’re concerned, we were under the impression that it was Andrzej Fonfara who was in negotiations with Kovalev” he continued. “We challenged the best available guys with ratings with the WBO. First we challenged Thomas Williams Jr (WBO #6) – they knocked back the fight – we’ve already challenged Berridge (WBO #10), so we moved onto Kovalev.”
“At the end of the day, they dodged us – and that’s gospel.” Labruna said. “We have no idea what they are doing.”
Photo: Louie Abigail/Photography by Rockfingrz