Last Saturday night, Steve ? USS? Cunningham 24-3, traveled to Germany to take on Yoan Pablo Hernandez 24-1. It was a fight that ended up with Hernandez winning by technical decision in 6 as the bout was halted by the fight doctor due to cuts caused by accidental headbutts. The fight was close at the time of the stoppage but it was clear that Cunningham was starting to heat up as Hernandez was fading. I talked to Steve Cunningham moments ago to take his side of the story on how this unfortunate situation went down.
#1 Steve, Let me first appologize to you for not getting to you sooner. I kept hearing that you got robbed out there in Germany. But I first wanted to see the tape for myself before I made the call, so thank you for taking my call. So break it down for us on the whole situation, what were your instincts telling you going into the fight against Yoan Pablo Hernandez?
SC- Don?t even worry about not getting to me sooner, I?m glad that you wanted to see and break down the fight first before getting at me. I got to be honest with you, from the very beginning, I felt that there was something fishy.
Fishy, fishy like how exactly?
SC- Well first of all, Hernandez had to vacate his title to fight me. Now me at that time I was thinking, ok so why the need to vacate your title? In the back of my mind I was thinking that maybe he was told something. Hernandez had to have been given some kind of a guarantee.
So with that being said, you would have needed to score a knockout as the only real way for you to make it 100% official. That always seems to be the risk one takes of crossing the pond and fighting overseas. But that had to be chilling on the back of your head heavy during the build up for the fight right?
SC- For sure, you are 100% right. I mean during the press conference it was all about him. They talked about how he defected from Cuba, and meeting his mom, and how he now calls Germany his home. Nothing about me. So you can say that Yes my team and I knew what was up. Now you can sit there and ask me, well then why even place myself in that position in the first place?
Well that?s because you have to make a living, and it?s either fight Yoan Pablo Hernandez in Germany or sit on the shelf and get rusty. My question is, what is being done about this now? What steps must be taken to ensure that the right thing is done?
