Of course, Bob Arum has never been shy about expressing his feelings about anything and he was giddy over his most recent pay-per-view show, which couldn’t have done well financially but was a critical hit with those who actually saw it.
Arum told Maxboxing, regarding his card at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California this past weekend, “We paid less for all of our fighters on all ten fights than Berto got for his purse (versus Freddie Hernandez).”
Berto was paid over $900,000 for his one-round thrashing of Hernandez on November 27th.
OK, moving on, what happens now to Arum’s plan of matching the winner of Humberto Soto-Urbano Antillon (which was won by Soto in an exciting back-and-forth affair) against Brandon ?Bam Bam? Rios on February 26th on HBO?
“Here’s what we’re looking at,” Arum told Maxboxing on Monday afternoon. “There’s no way that Soto will be able to go February 26th. So we have that date; so what we’re thinking about is to put Rios in with either Miguel Vazquez or Miguel Acosta and then do the rematch [between Soto and Antillon]. If we don’t get a spot on the network because it was only the ?Fight of the Year’ and they don’t want to go near ‘Fights of the Year’ because that would ruin their reputation. So what our plan would be then is to take that fight and put in on the Manny Pacquiao pay-per-view in April.”
Top Rank is working quickly to fill its schedule of fights for the first quarter of 2011. One of them could be a fight between featherweight titleholders Yuriorkis Gamboa and Chris John, who just defended his belt over the weekend.
“Yes, we’re waiting on [John’s advisor] Sampson Lewkowicz to arrive back in the United States and reading the web in connection with Chris’ fight, he was talking about his next fight being in the United States against Gamboa. So hopefully, that’s all in the process of happening and it would be in the first week of March.”
As for Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., who was scratched from last weekend?s card?
“We’re not using him, at least in the United States, until he goes to some sports medicine facility and gets a complete analysis and check-up,” said the veteran promoter. “Something is radically wrong here, where virtually every fight, he gets sick. And he’s not malingering- he gets sick. So maybe it’s because he comes in so heavy, he gets sick when he loses weight. We don’t know; I’m not a doctor. But before I’m going to use him again in the United States, I’m going to insist on that kind of medical examination.”
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