Triller Fight Club looks to hit one out of the park for the most significant fight in its young history in the sport.
A venue is still being sought for the upcoming World lightweight championship between defending lineal king and WBA/IBF/WBO titlist Teofimo Lopez Jr. and IBF mandatory challenger George Kambosos Jr. Multiple sources have informed BoxingScene.com that Marlins Park, home to Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins has emerged as a leading candidate with a hold placed on the venue for June 5.
The show has yet to be formally announced, although the date lines up with a tweet provided earlier in the month by Lopez which has since been deleted. The lone confirmation regarding the event has come from Triller Fight Club (TFC) confirming that it will headline a Pay-Per-View show in the coming months.
TFC claimed promotional rights to the title fight between Lopez and Kambosos after winning a purse bid hearing held by the IBF on Feb. 25th. The upstart company submitted a massive offer of $6,018,000, far outpacing the only other two companies to bid on the event—Matchroom Boxing ($3,506,000) and Top Rank ($2,315,000), the latter who has served as Lopez’s career-long promoter.
Should the show ultimately land at Marlins Park, it will mark the first-ever boxing card at the state-of-the-art and environmentally friendly venue since first opening its doors in 2012. The most significant connection to the sport came in April 2012, when the late, great Muhammad Ali threw the ceremonial first pitch for the Marlins’ first home game at the new stadium.
The move to such a venue would fall in line with current plans for Triller’s upcoming April 17 PPV show. A fight between YouTube celebrity and current cruiserweight Jake Paul (2-0, 2KOs) and former mixed martial artist Ben Askren—who makes his pro boxing debut—headlines a hybrid boxing show and music festival which will air live from Mercedes-Benz Stadium, home to the National Football League’s Atlanta Falcons in Atlanta, Georgia.
Tickets will not be sold for the April 17 show. The event will instead host a “Golden Ticket” giveaway challenge, which will assign tickets to 100 winners who will represent the lone non-talent guests for the show.
It has yet to be determined whether the same approach will be taken for Lopez-Kambosos. TFC’s inaugural event took place behind closed doors last November at Staples Center in Los Angeles, headlined by an eight-round exhibition between boxing legends Mike Tyson and Roy Jones. The event reportedly sold more than 1.6 million buys, landing in the Top 10 best-selling combat sports PPV events in history.
Lopez (16-0, 12KOs) will make his second overall title defense and first since becoming the unified champion. The 23-year old Brooklyn native—who also has established roots in Florida and Las Vegas—is coming off of a career-best win, having soundly outpointed three-division titlist Vasiliy Lomachenko in their three-belt unification clash last October in Las Vegas.
The win came 10 months after Lopez scored a 2nd round knockout of Richard Commey to win the IBF lightweight title at Madison Square Garden in New York City. That same show saw Australia’s Kambosos (19-0, 10KOs) outpoint former lightweight titlist Mickey Bey over 10 rounds. Kambosos followed up the feat with a 12-round decision win over former featherweight titlist Lee Selby in their IBF title eliminator last Halloween on the road in London, England.
Negotiations between camps began shortly after their respective wins, though with the fight officially ordered this past January. The IBF submitted the matter to a purse bid hearing after talks reached an impasse, in large part due to Lopez and Top Rank failing to agree to terms on their side.
Jake Donovan is a senior writer for BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox
