CARSON, Calif. -- Top Rank promoter Bob Arum said he is going back to the company’s roots. No longer will he wait for a date from HBO to make fights for some of his company’s fighters.
“We’re going back to our roots, like when we had (Hall of Fame junior flyweight champion) Michael Carbajal,” Arum told ESPN.com on Thursday after the final news conference promoting his HBO card topped by Timothy Bradley-Jessie Vargas at the StubHub Center on Saturday night. “It was important for him to fight regularly and to get him a date on HBO or a network was difficult, so we did these pay-per-view shows with him and Chiquita (Gonzalez). And we did OK on them.
“It’s not fair to us or to HBO for us to be dependent on the HBO (money). HBO has to be able to accommodate other people. They can’t always accommodate us but that shouldn’t impact on our fighters.”
To that end, Arum said he and Mexican promoter Fernando Beltran of Zanfer Promotions are planning a Sept. 26 pay-per-view card that will take place at the Mexico City Arena.
It will be a throwback card to the days of when Top Rank put on “Latin Fury” cards, which featured mainly Mexican fighters. Fighters such as Erik Morales, Genaro Hernandez and Jorge Arce stayed busy fighting on those shows, often in very entertaining bouts.
If Arum has his way he will be able to convince Japanese promoter Akihiko Honda of Teiken Boxing to match flyweight champion Roman “Chocolatito” Gonzalez (43-0, 37 KOs) with former titlist Brian Viloria (35-4, 21 KOs) in the main event.
“I don’t think Mr. Honda is so anxious for Chocolatito to fight Viloria,” Arum said. “So the question is, does (Gonzalez) fight on HBO in October or on pay-per-view in September? I’m not so anxious to put him on a pay-per-view card unless he fights someone like Viloria. A rematch with (Mexico’s Juan Francisco) Estrada would be fine also. I would like him to fight Viloria because I think it would drive a lot of Filipino buys because Viloria is popular with the Filipinos.”
Arum said the card would also include super middleweight contender Gilberto Ramirez and featherweight prospect Oscar Valdez -- as long as both win their fights this weekend. Ramirez (31-0, 24 KOs) headlines Friday’s truTV card against Derek Edwards (27-4-1, 14 KOs) while Valdez (15-0, 14 KOs) makes his HBO debut against Ruben Tamayo (25-5, 17 KOs) on Saturday night’s card at the StubHub Center.
Initially, Arum hoped to line up Ramirez for a super middleweight title shot this fall against the winner of the fourth fight between titleholder Arthur Abraham and former titleholder Robert Stieglitz, who meet July 18. But Arum said he was unsure if he’d be able to make a deal for that fight, so he’ll put Ramirez on the September card and look for a title shot for him after that.
“Those guys (Abraham and Stieglitz) fight in July so who knows when the winner will want to fight next,” Arum said.
Arum said another fighter who could appear on Sept. 26 is Jose Zepeda (23-0, 20 KOs) -- if he defeats England’s Terry Flanagan (27-0, 10 KOs), whom he meets for a vacant lightweight world title on July 11 in Manchester, England.
“We’re going to do the show in conjunction with (Mexican network) TV Azteca, which will cut down on a lot of our expenses,” Arum said. “We have a good site fee in Mexico and it is designed for us to break even at 50,000 to 60,000 buys, which we should be able to do.”