Arum: Never Had an Undercard With The Significance of This One

By Steve Kim

Coming into this weekend as Manny Pacquiao and Tim Bradley meet for the third time at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, veteran promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank has focused much of his attention on the pay-per-view undercard that sees Gilberto Ramirez challenging WBO 168-pound titlist Arthur Abraham, Oscar Valdez versus former featherweight belt-holder Evgeny Gradovich, and lightweight Jose Ramirez taking on Manuel Perez in the opener.

Top Rank has scheduled separate press conferences for this undercard in addition to an open workout, which is highly unusual.

"I've never had an undercard that I can recall that has the significance of this one,"explained Arum, of the resources he has put into marketing his young fighters on this show.

"In other words, the three Hispanic kids are guys that we have groomed for future stardom and they're all fighting in major fights considering the stage of their development. So these aren't just good fighters that I matched up and put on an undercard, these are my future superstars and therefore we concentrated tremendously on this undercard to great effects."

Arum has dubbed this portion of the broadcast the 'No Trump Card' in an effort to rally the Latin fan-base.

"I have never in the entire time that I've been promoting boxing done so many Spanish television and radio," said Arum, who's made the media rounds recently.

Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.