Kielsa Slays Polley, Eyes Canada’s Top Heavyweights

Posted on | June 28, 2009 | No Comments

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

RAMA, ON – (June 26, 2009) – With a devastating win over veteran Byron Lee Polley under his belt, Canadian Heavyweight champion Greg “The Steel Pole” Kielsa (9-0, 4 KO’s), will have to wade through the current crop of potential title challengers that have suddenly crawled from under the woodwork clamoring for a shot at his crown.

Unable to secure a fight with a ranked Canadian contender, Kielsa stepped into the ring Friday night at Rumble at Rama VIII, at Casino Rama, in Rama, Ontario, against veteran Byron Lee Polley (23-9-1, 11 KO’s) from Saint Joseph, Missouri, in a non-title fight.

Kielsa dropped Polley twice before landing a colossal counter left that planted the game American for a third and final time, prompting referee Rocky Zolnierczyk to wave the fight over at 2:12 of the fourth round.

With the statement win over Polley, Kielsa can now concentrate on defending his title against all comers, a scenario that Kielsa’s manager James Jardine insists is harder than it sounds.

“We’ve been trying to get Greg to defend his belt, and have reached out to most of the contenders, but either we haven’t heard back from them, they outprice themselves with outrageous purse demands, or they want Greg to fight outside Ontario, which doesn’t suit our purposes at all,” Jardine said.

“We tried calling Art Binkowski twice, but his phone must be broken because we never heard back from him. Neven Pajkic wanted $15,000 to fight Greg, which is ludicrous, and we would have fought Jean Francois Bergeron, but they wanted Greg to fight in Quebec, which makes no sense to us because we’re trying to build up Greg here in Ontario.”

“Patrice L’Heureux is also on our radar, but according to his promoter, he’d rather make more money fighting in Quebec than fighting Greg for the title in Ontario.”

With an abundance of new challenges on the horizon for Kielsa, a name from his recent past – Ray Olubowale, the man Kielsa dethroned for the title – has been making headlines recently in an attempt to secure a rematch.

“I read that Ray would be willing to put up $5000 of his purse against $5000 of Greg’s purse as a side bet. I’m very close to Ray and couldn’t do that to him, I mean that would be practically his entire purse,” Jardine said.

“What puzzles me about Ray begging for a rematch was that it took him 14 months to make his only defense of the title. Now he’s acting as if Greg is the one hiding. With Ray it’s a case of been there, done that.”

“I’ve read that people are looking down their noses at Byron Polley as an opponent for Greg,” Jardine said.

“But when you look at who some of these other guys fought in their tenth pro fight, Polley is a certified killer in comparison.”

ABOUT ORION SPORTS MANAGEMENT
Orion Sports Management Inc. is an Ontario based promotional company known for staging first-class boxing events. Run by former Canadian Airline executive Allan Tremblay, Orion is the force behind Ontario’s biggest match ups, from their launch event at The Air Canada Centre (“The Night Of The Hurricane”) to a series of televised events in the Niagara region featuring “Baby Joe” Mesi, Razor Ruddock, Egerton Marcus, and Steve Molitor.