By Victor Salazar
Roc Nation Sports will host its first major event this Saturday when Miguel Cotto takes on Daniel Geale at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. Roc Nation Sports made a splash when they signed Miguel Cotto this year but before that major signing, Roc Nation Sports also signed pound for pound stalwart Andre Ward.
Ward returns June 20th in Oakland against Paul Smith on the BET Network. Both clients of Roc Nation have been mentioned in potential fights with Gennady Golovkin. Golovkin has been campaigning for a fight with Cotto while his handlers want to build a fight with Ward.
The man instrumental with bringing Cotto and Ward to Roc Nation is David Itskowitch, the man that runs the boxing division for the entity.
Itskowitch said he has been in contact the K2’s Managing Director Tom Loeffler about potention fights with Gennady Golovkin for both Ward and Cotto. He says both fights can happen but feels the time isn’t right now.
“I think when the time is right to make those fights (Cotto-Golovkin, Golovkin-Ward), we’ll make those fights,” Itskowitch told BoxingScene.com. “Tom (Loeffler)and I go back a long way. I have called him about Golovkin. We’ve talked about some fights and I think those 2 fights are possible. I just think the time has to be right for both of them. I don’t think now is necessarily the time for them.”
Ward’s next fight will be against Paul Smith at a catch weight of 172. Itskowitch feels it’s a gauge of him testing the higher weights, a move that can possibly lead to a fight with Sergey Kovalev.
“He’s going to fight this fight and see how he feels, see if moving up in weight is what he wants or staying at 168,” Iskowitz said. “(Kovalev-Ward) absolutely could happen. I think that’d be a mega fight, a fight people would love to see. It’s definitely would be interesting if he decides to move up in weight.”
Itskowitch says HBO’s interest in Ward is still there even if his next fight is on BET.
“HBO is interested. We’ve been in talks with them, we decided to put this fight on platform but there are discussions of other fights for Andre on the network.”