The recent dead period in boxing — has there been a fight since the Shane Mosley-Sergio Mora draw in September? — will end Saturday night.
Showtime has a card in Las Vegas pitting featherweight champion Juan Manuel Lopez versus Rafael Marquez, and HBO will show California lightweights Robert Guerrero versus Vicente Escobedo.
It’s a prelude to the Nov. 13 Manny Pacquiao-Antonio Margarito pay-per-view bout in Cowboys Stadium, and a run of title defenses by the likes of Sergio Martinez (Nov. 20), Juan Manuel Marquez (Nov. 27) and Amir Khan (Dec. 11).
“We’ve been patiently waiting for this flurry of activity,” HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg said. “We missed the fights, but we’ve realized the way to make solid fights is by not accepting mediocrity. Don’t bring us a bad fight, we’re telling the promoters, because we’re not buying it.”
Greenburg says he was as frustrated as any hard-core boxing fan by the inability (twice) to make a Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. super-fight this year.
“We need to get on a roll here for the sake of the sport. We need to get boxing back in the mainstream,” Greenburg said. “We were on the cusp of something special if we could make the fight with Manny and Floyd, but these two failed attempts have hurt us. We ne
