Tsatas, who also said Oquendo could have fought Lucas Browne for the ‘regular’ belt in a previous interview, made the claims after his veteran fighter got promised a bout versus the winner of the Aussie versus Shannon Briggs.
As Fury took time out of the sport, Klitschko immediately held links to unifying with IBF champion Anthony Joshua. However, WBA President Gilberto Mendoza sounded out Oquendo to fight the Ukrainian instead.
FRES OQUENDO KLITSCHKO
“This is what is truly baffling, and what I really don’t understand,” Tsatas exclusively told World Boxing News.
“At the end of September, Gilberto Mendoza called our promoter, John Wirt, to see if Fres could be ready to fight Wladimir Klitschko aka ‘The Chicken’ as Tyson Fury had tested positive for cocaine.
“John called me, and then I called Fres, his brother, Nate Jones, and Dino Spencer (his trainers), and we all talked and decided that Fres had made a lot of progress and could do the fight. We told John, who told Gilberto, who then conveyed this to Team Chicken (Klitschko).
“From what I understand, Shelly Finkel then called John, and they talked about the fight, and John told Shelly that Fres would do it. And from what I understand, John wrote to Gilberto that Fres was available to fight ‘The Chicken’ (Klitschko) so everyone knew Fres was ready,” he explained.
Oquendo is now facing a wait of at least five months to finally get his shot at a WBA belt, stemming from the fallout of losing against controversial Uzbek Ruslan Chagaev way back in the summer of 2014.
WBN Editor Phil has years of boxing news experience. Follow WBN us on Twitter @WorldBoxingNews.
