Starling Ponders Career While Shoulder Heals

HARTFORD, Conn. —  The phone at Marlon Starling’s home rings and rings but there is no answer.

Ring!

“Do you want to fight Simon Brown?”

Ring!

“Do you want to fight Mark Breland in June?”

Ring!

“Do you want to move up in weight class, Ray Leonard’s weight class?”

Ring!

“Do you want to fight in Japan? Europe? Anywhere?”

Starling has been laid low because of a shoulder injury that forced cancellation of a third battle with Breland and resulted in termination of a lucrative contract with Home Box Office.

Starling is in physical therapy and considering the next step of his career.

“The plan is he will fight sometime later this year, the earliest being late July or August,” Starling’s adviser, Mort Sharnik, said Thursday.

Though the loss of the HBO deal, which could have been worth $1.6 million to Starling, was a setback, it may be only a temporary one. Offers of other fights are being fielded by Starling’s representatives, including another with Breland for June, which Starling has turned down.

Promoter Cedric Kushner said Starling was unable to accept a proposal to fight Breland June 24 in a pay-per-view deal without medical clearance, which he wouldn’t receive for another couple weeks at the earliest.

Dan Duva, president of Main Events-Monitor Productions, said without 60-day notice the pay-per-view deal could not be made and Breland probably would schedule another fight in June or July.

The interest in reviving Starling-Breland, Sharnik said, is indicative of the position Hartford’s World Boxing Council welterweight champion is in now.

“Plenty of people are interested in putting him on,” Sharnik said.

Sharnik and Starling huddled this week to discuss the available alternatives. Sharnik said Starling could fight in Europe or Asia (possibly in a rematch with Japan’s Fujio Ozaki) and that he has had inquiries from the camp of IBF welterweight champion Simon Brown about a match.

Sharnik said Starling has established a $1 million price tag for “exceptional fights,” including Breland, Brown and Julio Cesar Chavez. Other fights, such as a WBC mandatory title defense against No. 1-ranked Yungkil Chung, Ozaki or another top 10 contender is a possibility for a lesser purse.

Sharnik said a pay-per-view deal is a good possibility and that Starling ultimately might make out as well or better than he would have with the HBO agreement.

“He could fight for $600,000 or $1 million,” Sharnik said. “Or, instead of fighting once for $600,000, he could fight twice for $300,000. He’s a hot subject for pay-per-view. There’s the (Tomas) Molinares knockout, he was (burned) by the WBA and then he comes back and decimates the unquestioned king of the welterweights.”

Kushner said he is still going to try to honor his agreement with Starling for a fight for $600,000 and then one for a million.

Sharnik and Kushner said one of the considerations is having a fight in Hartford.