Golden
Boy Promotions CEO Richard Schaefer has announced that Amir Khan will be
headlining May 19th at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The
question is, who will he be facing? The hope was that it would be a rematch
against Lamont Peterson, who defeated him on December 10th in
Washington D.C. for the WBA and IBF junior welterweight belts. While the WBA
mandated an immediate rematch in the wake of the controversy that ensued over
the performance of referee Joe Cooper, for some reason, Team Khan withdrew its
appeal with the IBF.
And
with that, Peterson now has some wiggle room.
Schaefer
doesn't expect Peterson to face Khan in the spring at the building that has a
statue of Oscar De La Hoya in front of it.
“Well,
it seems to me, Lamont Peterson is not going to do it,” Schaefer said Friday afternoon to Maxboxing. “My
feeling is- and I've said it all along- that [Peterson’s] goal is to go and
fight Juan Manuel Marquez and then get a shot at [Manny] Pacquiao, [in] the
tournament that [Bob] Arum started talking about yesterday. This is something I
went on the record with two or three weeks ago, saying that's what's going to
happen- and sure enough, that's what's going to happen.”
Schaefer
is of the belief that while Marquez and Peterson will square off, Pacquiao will
face Tim Bradley on June 9, with the winners to meet in the fall. He warns, “I
hope that Lamont Peterson and his people know what they're doing because I'm
not so sure that the million-and-a-half we offered them against a 50/50 [split],
they might end up finding themselves with nothing- or much less.”
When
asked about the possibility of a Peterson-Marquez bout on Monday, Arum said, “We're
pretty close. I've been talking to Barry Hunter; he's pretty much on board. I
don't know completely but pretty much on board and Marquez is on board.” The
build-up to the fight would take place south of the border. “What we're going
to do is give them tune-up fights on March 17th in Mexico City. They're
opening up a new arena.”
As
for the showdown between the two, Arum stated, “We're looking at July 14th at Cowboys Stadium.”
This
card would be a pay-per-view offering.
“Because
look,” explained the veteran promoter, “I don't begrudge them. The premium
networks pay the money. If they don't like some of my fights, they have a right
not to like them because they're paying the money. Fine, but I have the right
when I do pay-per-views to say, ‘OK, you don't like my fights; I'm paying the
money and I'll put whatever the hell I want on it,’ and that's what I'm going
to do.”
The
goal is to work off of volume in Arlington.
“We'd
be aiming for 30-to-40,000 people and we would have very reasonable ticket
prices and other championship fights on the program,” Arum said. “It would be a
really good show. We learned from San Antonio that if we do really good ticket
prices and not go crazy, we do great. Like this week (where Julio Cesar Chavez
Jr. and Nonito Donaire headline at the Alamodome), our top ticket price is
$200, which are all sold out. All sold out. And in the next few days, the 100’s
will sell out. And the 25's, the cheapest tickets are practically sold out. So
the only tickets we still have to move are the 60's and 40's and those will go
pretty good.”
APRIL
14TH
As
for a potential bout between Brandon Rios and Yuriorkis Gamboa on April 14th at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, Arum said, “We got great news that the fight
is virtually closed.”
To
this, Top Rank President Todd duBoef (@ToddDuboef) tweeted:
@stevemaxboxing it is NOT virtually closed. We are working on it
now!!! Just for clarification
He says that Gamboa's manager, Ahmet Oner, is currently
in Europe and they still have some work to do to make this bout come to
fruition. Arum says that Mike Alvarado would open up this HBO card and a fight
they would like to explore (with HBO's blessing) is one against Ruslan
Provodnikov.
TUESDAY FLURRIES
The March 23rd edition of “ShoBox” from
the Casino del Sol in Tuscon, AZ will feature Diego Magdaleno...The next fight
card at the El Faro Plaza in Vernon, CA. takes place on Feb. 10th and will feature prospect Jesse Roman. For info, call 323-233-2261 or
323-353-3212...OK, the conspiracy theories are already in full bloom. Will it
be Andre Berto or Victor Ortiz facing Floyd Mayweather on May 5th now that that rematch may not take place on Feb. 11th?...Al Golden
looks to be closing like Secretariat in the final days of recruiting...Is it
just me or is the NBA unwatchable thus far?...
