Chordale Booker aims to smoke Greg Vendetti on February 3

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE- Monday, January 29, 2024

Chordale Booker aims to smoke Greg Vendetti on February 3

STAMFORD, CT – Chordale “The Gift” Booker (21-1, 10 KOs) has been patiently reading and listening to what his future opponent, Greg “The Villain” Vendetti (23-5-1, 12 KOs), has to say about him as a fighter.

On February 3, the pair will clash in the main event of CES Boxing’s Winter Brawl 2024 at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, CT. On the line will be Booker’s WBC US Super Welterweight Championship.

Winter Brawl 2024 tickets, starting at $67, are on sale now at CESfights.com, Ticketmaster or the Mohegan Sun Box office. Fans should act fast as tickets are quickly selling out.

“I hate when guys downplay me as a fighter,” asserted the Stamford native a few weeks out from the bout. “Vendetti said that I have a brittle spirit. He can think that, but I’m still going to beat his ass one way or another on February 3rd.”

Booker is referring to ‘The Villain’ questioning his grit when it comes to winning a long, drawn-out fight.

“I don’t understand that assessment,” insists Booker, who will be making the second defense of his title. “Sometimes, when you tell yourself something enough times, you start to believe it. If Vendetti believes that, he’s coming into that fight to lose, because if you think you’re going to wait until the end of the fight to try to catch me, I’ll already have racked up 6 or 7 rounds.”

The war of words ignited Booker’s competitive spirit and gave him a little extra motivation to ensure that he leaves Mohegan Sun Arena and his hometown fans with an impressive victory and the WBC title still wrapped around his waist.

“I have respect for him as a fighter, but I’m a competitor,” elaborated Booker. “As a competitor, I want to step on anybody who comes on the court with me, in the ring with me, the chess table, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to make sure that I smoke you in anything that we do.”

The 32-year-old, ranked 14 by the WBO and 33 by the WBC, has been in training since early December, weeks before the fight card was announced. When asked how he expects this fight to go, The Gift seems to have envisioned its outcome several times over.

“Everybody who’s into boxing knows how this fight is going to go,” explains Booker. “He’s going to put on a lot of pressure and come forward. I’m going to stay on the outside, pop my jab, work angles, stay slick, be untouchable, and keep pot shotting. I’m not going to stay in front of him too long.”

‘The Gift’ doesn’t just disagree with Vendetti’s assessment of his gas tank. Booker is actually counting on the fight going into the late rounds where he feels his boxing skills will take over.

“The harder he tries, the sloppier he’s going to get, and I’m going to pick my shots,” continued Booker. “I’m expecting him to be really game and work hard early, but eventually the pace is going to slow down and will favor my style. He can think that he’s going to catch up to me late, but he's going to be weakening. He gets hit every round, clean and right on the chin. That’s going to break him down eventually.”

If it sounds like Chordale is looking to make a statement on February 3rd, it’s as much to do with Vendetti’s opinions of him as it does with The Villain’s manager calling him out immediately after he won the WBC US title last April.

“To be real, I don’t have to fight him,” admits Booker. “He’s not even in the rankings that I’m trying to work my way up, but his manager came up to me right after I won my title at Mohegan and said, ‘we’ll fight you now that you have something to fight for’. I replied, ‘well, it’s going to be your fault I beat his ass’.”

Despite the trash talk, it is evident that Booker has carefully studied Vendetti and respects him as a fighter, particularly after The Villain challenged Erislandy Lara for the WBA Super Welterweight title in 2020. Vendetti gave a good accounting of himself in that bout but was outboxed by the savvy Cuban over 12 rounds.

“I’m very familiar with who he is as a pro,” agrees Booker. “He does have a good name and he’s a tough, game guy. He made it to the world title stage. I never made it there. Kudos to him for that, but he lost. Just because you made it to that level, it doesn’t make you a world champion. He didn’t get the shot because he was a great fighter, he got the shot because he had the style to make Lara look good.”

This brings us to another criticism that irked Booker: the notion that Vendetti’s resume is better than his and that Chordale doesn’t have any quality wins.

“He can take shots at my resume, but to be quite frank, our resumes are quite similar,” says Booker. “I would say that Wale Omotoso was the most credible win on my record. He acts like [Yoshihiro] Kamegai was Miguel Cotto. I don’t even know if he would beat Omotoso, but I know that I’d box the shit out of Kamegai, because even Vendetti outboxed Kamegai. I watched that fight a few times, but it was ‘rock ‘em, sock ‘em’ robots. I had to stop watching because I felt like I was losing brain cells seeing two guys just swing and hope for the best.”

While the fighters may continue to trade words about their conditioning and credentials leading up to fight night, one thing is certain: the ring is a truth telling machine, and Booker believes that he’ll be able to show Vendetti the truth better than he can tell him.

“At the end of the day on February 3rd, he’ll see,” says Booker. Indeed, we’ll all see.

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