Noel Mikaelian sits down with Ring Magazine to talk about the state of his career and upcoming fight against Jai Opetaia. Notably, Mikaeliean is forced to confront how he ended up in promotional turmoil with Don King and how he’s now trying to move forward. Check out some excerpts with the full video interview below.
Mikaelian on his inactivity and promotional issues with Don King
“In recent years during COVID and all these promotional issues, it’s not only on the fighters. The promoters have to make the fights happen and the promoters have the obligation to loyal
contracts. They always ask the fighters to be loyal, but most of the time the promoters aren’t loyal to the fighters, honoring their fights. That was the reason why I was so long inactive, yet I tried to accomplish and get the best opportunities for myself. And, yeah, recently I had a lot of problems and struggles with Don King and everybody who’s in boxing knows how difficult it can be dealing with Don King.
“And I have now hired a very good manager…and he is doing an excellent job and now have the rights to solicit third party opportunities and that’s how we made this [Opetaia] fight happen.”
On not accepting a fight with David Benavidez
“I never seen a bona fide offer from their side. And with Don King, he’s an old school promoter. He’s receiving a contract and then they go into a dark room, decide what they pocket in their pockets, and they come out and tell the fighter ‘you’re just get this lump sum of this fight’ but you never know what is the steak on the table. So, that’s actually against the Muhammad Ali Act.
“So with the Benavidez fight, I agreed to it immediately and passed more than 60 days and I never received an agreement. Meanwhile they were talking to TKO since February already but they are withholding from me the conversations and we decided with my manager, we have to see what’s going on there to make a fight happen because otherwise if you leave it in their hands — I have to make a living, I have to fight. I can’t wait forever. I’m already getting gray hair. So, it’s either now or never.
“We can still make the Benavidez fight after this. The winner can fight Benavidez after in December or in January. The fight is not off the table.”
On why he signed an actual contract with infamous the Don King
“After the Briedis fight when I got robbed for the world title the first time…I got curious like ‘how does this work, why didn’t I get the decision?’ I was with the same promoter as he was and then I started to dig into how this boxing thing works. I don’t want to say ‘politics’ but you get what I’m saying.
“And then I was making it work for myself. I started to rebuild my career…Somebody told me how it works. ‘Don King has the champion, if you want to fight for the championship as a mandatory, the champion won’t fight you because you’re too strong [as a] voluntary. You are too high risk, low reward. So to do the mandatory position you have to sign with Don King.
“So then we met and he put the contract in front of me, ‘you’re signing this right now.’ I was like ‘no, I’m not’. I was there with my brother and he was checking all the legal stuff…He said ‘you sign this, you’re fighting for the world title against my champion.’ That’s how it happened. I only signed for that reason, to get the world title shot.”
