Under the previous regime at HBO, it was rare that boxing would even be scheduled in the month of October. The belief was that the baseball playoffs overshadowed everything else in the sporting universe. But now that a Yankee fan is no longer in charge over there (honestly, I?m not sure which ball club Ken Hershman supports), HBO has put together a very good looking doubleheader in conjunction with Top Rank that will see Nonito Donaire face Toshiaki Nishioka in a junior featherweight clash with a co-feature that looks to be a can?t-miss matchup in Brandon Rios vs. Mike Alvarado on October 13th. Talk about a fall classic.
Yeah, most boxing fans would be willing to forgo the divisional playoffs for this show, held at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California.
Todd duBoef, president of Top Rank told Maxboxing on Monday, ?I just think that it was done hand-in-hand with HBO. They wanted a big event for October and obviously with some of the younger, more talented guys in different divisions, we wanted to put them in solid fights. And when we talked about putting all these guys together on one show, it was, ?Wow, this could be incredible.? Rios and Alvarado in themselves are guys that can garner their own dates at this point; they both have that telegenic style and they?re both in a position where?listen, if they can put on an incredible performance, they?re both going to win. And with Nonito, he?s fighting probably one of the established 122-pounders in the world.? One of the best things you can say about this show is that either bout makes a strong case for being that night?s main event on HBO. But you get the sense that Rios-Alvarado has the makings of possibly being another Diego Corrales vs. Jose Luis Castillo I. But duBoef says, ?I think it?s different; I think they?re both in different places in their careers. This is a really interesting fight and I think a lot of it is it goes out to those guys who want to be fighters and want to go out there and put on great performances and give it their all and fight the highest caliber. Brandon?s obviously struggled with the 135-pound weight class and to go to 140 is obviously a big step and one of the most feared guys at 140 is Alvarado. And it became one of those things where they both saw a great opportunity for each other to shine.?
As for Donaire, whose last three fights have been relatively unimpressive, it?s a chance to reestablish his brand. The public reaction is that they prefer the match-up to Nishioka over Jorge Arce, who was originally slated to face the ?Filipino Flash? in this slot.
?I don?t think it?s a better opponent or worse opponent; I think there are no such things,? reasoned duBoef. ?I think there are no such things; they?re both good prizefights and you hope that the styles and the match-ups work out well and unfortunately for that date, we couldn?t make a Donaire-Arce fight work under these terms and Nishioka had been out there saying he really wanted to fight Donaire and Donaire did want to fight Nishioka. They had been talking about it and it was something where the timing worked out well for that fight to get hatched.?
As for the selection of the venue, duBoef said of the Home Depot Center, ?I think you still deal with a very large Filipino base out of the Carson area. I think it?s the second largest in California behind that pocket out of the San Francisco area and then you obviously have Rios that has a large Southern California contingent from Oxnard. I think those people who are big fight fans and those people – and we?ve seen everybody talk about it on social media – that want to see terrific match-ups. It?s a big hotbed. Southern California is a wonderful hotbed for fight fans and I think it makes a lot of sense there.?
