Foster: “I Was Willing To Go Straight Into A Unification With Roach”

O’Shaquie Foster Outs Lamont Roach for Declining a Unification

Come this July 6, WBC super featherweight champion O’Shaquie “Ice Water” Foster (22-2, 12 KO’s) will make the third defense of his title. In that prizefight, he will face the challenge of formidable fighter Robson Conceicao. Yet, if given his way, he would have preferred to be staging a unification bout versus WBA super featherweight champion Lamont Roach (25-1-1, 10 KO’s).

According to Foster, as detailed in a recent interview with Sean Zittel, Roach could have made the match but chose to go another route.

“Lamont Roach with the WBA title, but we gotta to figure out what he trying to do. He is fighting with ProBox [but] we could have did it this summer for the unification but he wasn’t up for it. He said the money wasn’t right, which I don’t know . . . He said he didn’t like the money, but for sure they definitely did try to make that unification, for sure . . . I was definitely willing to go into this summer straight into a unification but like I said, he said he didn’t like the numbers or whatever, so we’ll circle back on it on a different date.”

BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME

In all fairness, there has been a brewing feud between these two for a little while now. Earlier in the year, they would engage in a very public social media spat. At that time, boxing fans were hopeful that these heated words would boil over into a meaningful unification bout. This was not to be the case.

Instead of Ice Water, Roach opted to hop in the ring with Feargal McCory in a hometown bout. Once it was all said and done, Roach was able to rather easily dominate McCory in a match that the Irishman was dropped several times in before being stopped in the eighth.

Now that Foster has made it apart of public record that Roach wanted no parts of a unification, regardless of his rationale, there is little doubt that their public woofing will heat up again. Let’s just hope that this time, instead of warring with words, they end up in the ring trading leather! But first, Ice Water has to retain his title in what should be a rather challenging duel versus Conceicao.

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