By Steve Kim
Bob Arum, the head of Top Rank, says that his company has had recent discussions with HBO for fall dates for the likes of Vasyl Lomachenko and Nicholas Walters, who seemed destined to face each other until Walters failed to make weight for his bout a couple of weeks ago versus Miguel Marriaga and subsequently losing his WBA featherweight title on the scales.
The collisison course - for now - has been diverted.
"They're not going to fight each other next because we're going to move Walters up to 130 because he can't make 126. Lomachenko will stay at 126 before he moves up to 130," explained Arum, who has visions of future matches involving his clients that extend beyond these two.
"We got guys like Oscar Valdez, Lomachenko, Walters and Felix Verdejo and I think if our plan succeeds we're going to get some great fights among them, a year, two years from now. Obviously, Lomachenko and Walters are more advanced then Valdez and Verdejo but who knows - particularly with Verdejo and Valdez - the type of upside we have and Walters and Lomachenko are still relatively young guys,"said Arum.
Currently, Valdez - who is making his HBO debut tomorrow night versus Ruben Tamayo - is campaigning as a featherweight and Verdejo is a full-fledged 135-pounder, who is coming off a decisive victory over Ivan Najera on June 13th and just underwent surgery on his left hand.
Steve Kim is the news editor for BoxingScene.com.