By Robert Morales
Miguel Cotto had not yet gotten back to his promoter, Bob Arum, as of about 6 p.m. West Coast time on Wednesday regarding his proposed fight with Michael Jennings on Feb. 21. But Arum was still in a festive mood because of everything that is on the stove, including events that will transpire the first quarter of next year.
On Arum's mind were the Dec. 6 showdown between Manny Pacquiao and Oscar De La Hoya in Las Vegas, the just-consummated Feb. 7 fight between super flyweight champion Vic Darchinyan and Jorge Arce and a potential two-site doubleheader that would pit Cotto against Jennings in Atlantic City and middleweight champion Kelly Pavlik defending his belts against Marco Antonio Rubio in Pavlik's native Youngstown, Ohio.
If hype means anything, the De La Hoya-Pacquiao fight should do well on HBO pay-per-view, even with a price tag of $54.95.
"It has been tremendous," Arum said of the hoopla surrounding De La Hoya-Pacquiao. "I haven't seen a fight get this kind of publicity in a long time.
Everybody is writing about it, it's all over TV. I'm very pleased."
Arum and his Top Rank Inc. this week had already put together Antonio Margarito-"Sugar" Shane Mosley for Jan. 24, a fight that will be televised by HBO from Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. But the Arce-Darchinyan fight will be televised by Showtime from Honda Center in Anaheim, Calif.
"We're looking ahead to next year and the thing that is important is not to tie yourself to any one network and indeed be able to act independently of a network, which is what we are going to be doing in February on Showtime," Arum said.
That said, the proposed Feb. 21 doubleheader would not be on HBO or Showtime, but would be presented as a split feed on a pay-per-view show produced by Top Rank.
Arum said that he would be formally announcing Pavlik-Rubio sometime after De La Hoya-Pacquiao. It would be held at the Chevrolet Centre in Youngstown.
Now if Cotto would only accept his fight with Jennings, that doubleheader would be set.
According to Arum, the idea that Cotto had yet to respond with a yes or no answer at the time we interviewed him does not mean that fight won't happen.
"Yeah, I gave him a deadline and it was today, but it could be tomorrow," Arum said. "They told me they would give me an answer today and I guess today is midnight. If it comes tomorrow morning I guess it is equally good. It's up to them."
If Cotto decides against taking on Jennings, Arum said he has a backup plan that would have Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. going against a top opponent in Mexico as the other half of the twinbill.
"Either way we are going on Feb. 21 with our own pay-per-view show," said Arum, who said he wasn't sure if Cotto not accepting the fight with Jennings would mean Cotto would have to sit out until a rematch with Margarito in June in New York City.
But wait, there's more. Arum said that in March he plans on doing a fight between Filipino flyweight champion Nonito Donaire and Mexican super flyweight champion Fernando Montiel that would take place in the Philippines.
"We know that Showtime is interested in showing the Donaire-Montiel fight because, obviously, the winner of Darchinyan-Arce is a good fit against the winner of Donaire and Montiel," Arum said.
Darchinyan said prior to his knockout of Cristian Mijares on Nov. 1 that he wants badly to get another shot at Donaire, who stopped Darchinyan in the fifth round in July 2007 in a flyweight title fight.
Gary Shaw eyes Caballero for Marquez
Promoter Gary Shaw still finds it difficult to believe that neither his fighter, Rafael Marquez, nor Israel Vazquez were willing to accept $1 million apiece to take each other on in a fourth fight.
"The Marquez side said it wasn't enough and Vazquez never came to the table," Shaw said. "I don't know how you turn down $1 million each in this day and age. But they did."
Vazquez's manager, Frank Espinoza, was reached Wednesday night in New York City, where he is spending Thanksgiving. Asked about his side not coming "to the table," Espinoza said, "I really have no comment."
Shaw said he is now going to try and put together a fight between Marquez and Celestino Caballero, who is coming off a fourth-round technical knockout of Steve Molitor and now holds two of the 122-pound championship belts.
"I'm going to see if I can make the Caballero fight," Shaw said. "I'm going to see No. 1, if anybody wants to buy it and if so, how much they want to pay for it."
Shaw was asked what he thought about a fight between Marquez and another super bantamweight champion, Juan Manuel Lopez of Puerto Rico. Lopez is defending his title against Sergio Manuel Medina on the undercard of De La Hoya-Pacquiao. Shaw didn't sound too thrilled about that matchup.
"Some guys may be good fighters, but don't have name recognition," Shaw said. "I wouldn't know him if he delivered a pizza to me this afternoon."
As for Vazquez, he is recovering from surgery to repair a detached retina. Espinoza said that once Vazquez is cleared by doctors to begin training, that's when he will go to work in earnest on Vazquez's next bout.
Getting back to Shaw, he was stoked about the Feb. 14 matchup between Alfredo Angulo and Ricardo Mayorga, which will take place at a site still to be determined.
"Don King (Mayorga's promoter) has the site, so I would think either California or Chicago," Shaw said. "Remember, he's (Angulo) only got 13, 14 fights. He's still a baby, so it's going to be exciting."
Angulo, of Mexico, is 14-0 with 11 knockouts.
A Tough Road For Estrada
Shawn Estrada has not had the easiest life in the world. He grew up on the tough streets of East Los Angeles as part of a family with 17 children. He had eight brothers and eight sisters, but many of his brothers got involved in gangs and one of them was shot in the head and killed.
Estrada then had the unenviable task of boxing in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing knowing that his father was about to die from kidney and heart problems. Juan Estrada was able to watch his son defeat Ezequiel Maderno of Argentina in the first round of the Olympics on television. But by the time Estrada stepped into the ring with eventual middleweight gold-medal winner James Degale of England in the second round, Juan Estrada was in a coma just hours away from death at the age of 64.
Through it all, Estrada has shown incredible courage and Saturday he will be making his professional debut when he takes on Lawrence Jones of Washington D.C. at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario, Calif. His four-round fight will be on the undercard of the Paul Williams-Verno Phillips junior middleweight interim title fight (on HBO).
Estrada said knowing his father was about to die while he was in China was extremely difficult. But Tuesday he spoke with pride about what the future holds for him. He said that unlike some of his brothers, "I've got no tattoos." He also said that unlike some of his brothers, he's never been a gang-banger.
He said that he moved out of East Los Angeles to an aunt's house in Lynwood, Calif., so he could attend Lynwood High, where he ran track and played football.
"I had to get out of East L.A.," he said.
To be fair, Lynwood is also a rough neighborhood, as this reporter found out last month when he witnessed a drive-by shooting minutes after a football game between Lynwood and Downey high schools.
The point is, Estrada is more interested in staying away from that kind of life and spreading positive vibes among the youth of the greater Los Angeles area.
"I want to be a role model," he said. "I want kids to know they can do anything they want, be a doctor, whatever."
Estrada's trainer and co-manager, Arnulfo Bravo, marveled at how Estrada boxed while knowing his father was facing certain demise. "He's just really tough and street-minded and that made him strong," Bravo said.
Merchant: Arreola Has To Prove Himself
HBO analyst Larry Merchant won't be working the aforementioned card Saturday in Ontario, Calif., but he will be there as an interested observer to see more of what Chris Arreola is all about. Arreola will be taking on Travis Walker in the heavyweight semi-main event to Williams-Phillips.
Arreola is ranked in the top 10 of all four major governing bodies, but he left a bad taste in the mouths of many when he came in weighing 258 1/2 pounds for his September fight against Israel Carlos Garcia, which Arreola won by third-round technical knockout.
Arreola (25-0, 22 KOs) has admitted over and over again since that fight that he blew it by coming in with jiggling rolls of fat. He said he thought he was going to be fighting David Tua and when that fell through, he tanked it during training, often now showing up at all.
"The thing about it is, his type of fighter has to be in what I call supreme condition," Merchant said Wednesday. "He is not going to finesse his way to a victory the way a boxer can. He is going to run into some guys who can punch. He's going to have to go through some adversity and that takes a kind of supreme condition to make it because that type of fighter usually doesn't have a long career like a boxer might. And when the chance presents itself, he's gotta be ready for it. You can't just train from fight to fight."
Merchant said that Arreola must stay in shape at all times.
"It's not just going away for five or six weeks and getting in shape," Merchant said. "It's training for a fight and staying in reasonable shape between fights and then training again. You have to do this over time so you can build up your stamina and endurance and ability to be able to handle everything that is going to be thrown at you."
Merchant suggested that Arreola does indeed have enough talent to become heavyweight champion, but that it will all depend on how dedicated he is, how willing he is to live the life that a fighter must live in order to become champion.
Merchant said he also wants to see what kind of following Arreola has when he squares off with Walker in an arena that is only a month old.
"I want to see the venue, what it looks like, whether he attracts fans," Merchant said of Arreola, of Riverside, who lives just 20 minutes from Citizens Business Bank Arena. "I want to see what he brings to this party."
Henry Ramirez, Arreola's trainer, said he wants to see Arreola come in at about 240 pounds, which would be much closer to his normal fighting weight.
"To look like you're in shape and you care," Merchant said, "is absolutely an important thing to sell yourself to the public."
Robert Morales covers boxing for the Los Angeles Daily News, ESPN.com, Long Beach Press-Telegram, and BoxingScene.com
