By Mark Vester

According to a recent report by Anwar S. Richardson of The Tampa Tribune, the proposed October clash between former super middleweight champion Jeff Lacy and former light heavyweight champion Antonio Tarver has hit a few stumbling blocks from making the fight a reality.

Antonio Tarver is claiming that there was an offer of $1.5 million made to Lacy and his promoter Gary Shaw to stage the fight as the main event of an HBO telecast in the St. Pete Times Forum in Flordia. Three problems hit the proposed deal in the last week, it was revealed that Lacy would not be receiving any of the gate revenues, or any of the national and international licensing money.

Promoter Gary Shaw and Lacy deny receiving an offer of $1.5 million from Tarver's team, but they also stated that they would reject the offer if there was no split of the gate revenue.

Tarver feels that Lacy and his team are making too many demands given the fact that Lacy does not have a title and has never made close to $1.5 million for any of his previous fights.

"For someone who doesn't have a title, and this is not even a championship fight, name me one fighter out there who would turn down the opportunity to make $1.5 million? He's never made that in his whole career and they feel like they are getting robbed? It doesn't make sense," Tarver said to the paper.

"How much did he make for fighting Robin Reid in Florida? Two fights ago he was making $150,000. I'm trying to give you $1.5 million. If they turn the fight down, it will be the stupidest thing he's ever done in his career. He will never rebuild from it."

Apparently there was an offer presented to Tarver by Gary Shaw that gave the former light heavyweight champion a 55-45 gate split and a generous purse for the fight to be staged on Showtime. The negotiations turned into a network battle as Tarver refused to fight on Showtime because of his loyalty to HBO and Lacy insisted on staging the fight on Showtime, but also said if the right deal was reached he would fight Tarver on HBO.

"That's coming from Tarver's mouth. If I'm crazy for not taking this fight, it's for a good reason. Tarver is Tarver. He's always going to be Tarver. He's tap dancing. He doesn't really want to fight. I said this in the beginning, and I'll say it again. He doesn't have the heart to take the fight. Right now, I'm getting tired of tap-dancing with him," Lacy said.

"I hope this finally shows everybody that Tarver doesn't want to fight me. Every time I agree on something they come up with something else. Tarver doesn't have the heart to fight me and this proves it."