In the immediate aftermath of the impressive outings put forth by Yuriorkis Gamboa (who blew out the normally durable Rogers Mtagwa in two rounds) and Juan Manuel Lopez (who halted Steven Luevano in seven heats to take the WBO featherweight title), the question was posed to Bob Arum- who happens to promote both standouts- if he would pit Gamboa and Lopez against each other in the near future.
And, only as Arum would, he basically told everyone that had come out to the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden in New York, that he didn’t give a….y’ know what, about what anyone else thought. He would do the fight when he felt that the time was right.
Remember the words from Orson Welles when he served as a pitchman for Paul Masson Wine? “We shall serve no wine before it’s time.” Well, the same theory applies with Arum, as it relates to this potential fight. If it were to be consummated now, it would be a fairly significant match-up; enjoyed mostly by the hard-core denizens of the fight game. Wait just a little bit and keep developing and showcasing this duo, it has a chance to be much more significant.
“My goal is to make it so big, that it’s in the Meadowlands Stadium,” Arum reiterated this Monday afternoon from his offices in Las Vegas. Meadowlands Stadium will soon be the new home of his beloved football team, the New York Giants.
And he will not bow to any public pressure to microwave this fight. He will let this thing marinate fully.
“I really think these are two exceptional fighters that everybody, not just the boxing people, but everybody has got to be aware and how good they are. So when they come together to fight, it’s a huge event,” said Arum, who harkens back to the blockbuster that was the Sugar Ray Leonard-Thomas Hearns fight in 1981. He wants to wait. “Just like Mike Trainer did,” said Arum, of Leonard’s keen advisor. “Emmanuel Steward would’ve wanted Tommy to fight Ray Leonard two years before it happened.”
By the time they fought, both fighters had gained transcendent appeal. Now, if they would’ve fought in 1979, Arum believes that the value of the promotion would’ve been, “considerably less. And it’s wonderful (if we did this fight now) and each guy will get a great purse if we do it. But if we do it on my schedule, they’ll each make millions. Or otherwise, what the hell am I there for?”
If Gamboa-Lopez took place this summer, Arum says, “It would get a lot of attention. It would be good. It would be a major fight and it would be terrific. But not the way it would be a year from now or a year-and-a-half from now. It’ll be- if I do it right- it’ll be like one of the most talked about featherweight fights- maybe not quite like a Mayweather-Pacquiao fight- but almost like that.”
Time is on their side. Gamboa, who has a record of 17-0 with 15 knockouts, is just 28 years old. Lopez, who improved to 28-0 with 25 stoppages, is 26. But, for all their talent, they are still relatively unknown outside the hard-core constituency. Lopez has a strong following in Puerto Rico, but still plays second fiddle to Miguel Cotto on the island. And Gamboa, like most Cubans, has failed to develop a consistent fan-base. But Top Rank believes, with consistent activity and exposure, that can change.
They will stay active in 2010 and beyond.
“Yeah,” said Arum, “they’re young guys. They want to fight and Gamboa might fight three more times (in 2010).. He’s going to fight in March in Germany.” Gamboa is co-promoted by Arena Box and began his career in Germany after defecting from Cuba in 2007.
As for their next outings, Arum told Maxboxing, “If Bernabe Concepcion wins on February 13th (against Mario Santiago), he’s on track to fight Lopez and we’re talking to the Celestino Caballero people to fight Gamboa in Miami.”
And don’t expect these guys to be fighting on “Latin Fury” anytime soon.
“I mean, Ross Greenburg (President of HBO Sports) said that he thought Gamboa was the best fighter that he’s seen in years. I mean, he was ecstatic about Gamboa and they were ecstatic with “JuanMa’s” performance,” said Arum, who mentioned that they will be staples on the network, as long as “the guys are going to fight very good opponents.”
Arum pledges, “They’re going to fight the best. There isn’t a featherweight in the world these two guys won’t fight.”
There’s no doubt that waiting is risky. You never know what can happen, especially with a fighter who has hit the deck four times already in Gamboa; and another who went life-and-death with Mtagwa in his last performance. But it’s a tightrope that Arum is willing to walk on.
But you can almost imagine it; Gamboa-Lopez in June of 2011 on the weekend of the Puerto Rican Day Parade.
“I didn’t think of that, but that could be,” said Arum, who most likely has absolutely thought of that scenario. “I don’t know exactly what date it would be and where, but if that fight is big enough, I would like to have it in the new Meadowlands Stadium; which is supposed to be equally as nice as Dallas Cowboys Stadium.”
STADIUM WAY
It wasn’t long ago that I dubbed Arum “The Boy Who Cried Stadium” for his propensity of promising to deliver fights to various stadiums across the land, only to have his events land at the same tired buildings. But Arum is now making good on his promise and he says that this will go far beyond March 13th at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium when Manny Pacquiao takes on Joshua Clottey.
“That is what our goal is, because boxing needs this; the sponsors want it. You can’t keep going back to the same ol’-same ol’ place. I mean, MGM Grand is a great place. Mandalay Bay is a great place, but you don’t do every fight in that place,” stated Arum. “Otherwise, it becomes like a Las Vegas act. I don’t want to say anything that demeans Las Vegas, I live here and so forth and we’ll continue to do fights here, but you gotta do fights in Dallas, do fights in Los Angeles, you gotta do fights in New York, you gotta do fights in New Jersey, you gotta do fights in Ohio, you gotta do fights in Miami. You gotta do fights all over, because that’s how people get energized.”
This past weekend, as tickets for “The Event” went on sale in Dallas, over 24,000 tickets were sold within the first few hours.
“Right now, we’re set up for 45,000, so I don’t know if we’re going to necessarily open up another 5,10, 15,000 seats- which we may- but I would think that we would have the 45,000.”
And this venue has a very good shot at becoming a semi-regular destination for boxing.
“Absolutely, why wouldn’t it?” said Arum, who has become quite chummy with Cowboys owner, Jerry Jones, in a short time. “I mean he loves boxing. He’s enthusiastic about it. He has this magnificent stadium and he only has ten committed dates per year, eight regular season games and two pre-season and playoff games here and there; if he’s lucky enough. So sure, he needs events and boxing lends itself to it.”
But Arum has given up on Macau. That dream has ended.
“We learned about Macau, I went over there and I spoke to the stadium people and I got the schematics, and so forth, and it didn’t pencil out,” he lamented. “Why didn’t it pencil out? Because the Chinese, going to them, will only pay very moderate prices for tickets to anything and, therefore, to schlep everybody across the ocean and to put it in a stadium, where we wouldn’t gross anywhere near what we gross in the United States, made no sense to me. But it seemed like a good idea and I really researched it and was there in person and they showed me what they charge for all these events and I don’t think you could go more than $20 to $100 for tickets.”
PPV?
It has not yet been declared if the June 12th match-up between WBA junior middleweight titlist Yuri Foreman and Miguel Cotto will be on pay-per-view or not.
“We’re talking to HBO as to what’s the best route for that,” said Arum. “And they seem to think that everybody would be better off if we did it on pay-per-view. But that hasn’t been decided.”
EARLY FLURRIES
The rubbermatch between WBA junior flyweight titlist Giovanni Segura and Cesar Canchila takes place February 20th on Fox Sports Espanol’s “Top Rank Live”…On Saturday, I actually went bike riding on the beach. I hadn’t ridden a bike in about 20 years and it’s true, you never forget how to do it…Then, on Monday, I actually did a swimming workout (did 20 laps). It’s almost like I’m training for a triathlon…In addition to all the televised shows on Friday night, “Top Rank Live” returns this Saturday night from Mexico with Jorge Arce; in what has to be a do-or-die fight for his career….On this week’s edition of “The Main Event,” scheduled to join us is HBO’s Larry Merchant and Rich Marotta of Fox Sports Net…I can be contacted at [email protected]… twitter.com/stevemaxboxing…
