Azteca America steps in for Solo Boxeo

When Spanish-language network Telefutura canceled "Solo Boxeo" for economic reasons on Nov. 8, the news came like a shot to the gut to boxing fans. When the popular two-hour, live Friday night boxing series aired for the final time on Dec. 19, after an eight-year run, it left a huge void. But that void will be filled thanks to Top Rank's new deal with Spanish-language Azteca America, promoter Bob Arum told ESPN.com. Arum's company, which has a heavily Hispanic roster of fighters, promoted most of Telefutura's cards. For the past year or so, Top Rank has done sporadic fights on Azteca America -- a sister network of Mexico's TV Azteca, launched in July 2001 -- in conjunction with Fernando Beltran's Zanfer Promotions, the Mexican-based company that has partnered with Top Rank to promote fighters such as Erik Morales and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. But those sporadic cards will become regular and plentiful on Azteca America, which reaches 89 percent of the total Hispanic population in the U.S., according to its corporate Web site. Not to mention all the non-Hispanic homes where fight fans live. Canchila, Segura With fights like Cesar Canchila-Giovanni Segura 2 on Azteca America, boxing fans will soon forget about the now-defunct "Solo Boxeo" show. Arum said the exact number of shows hasn't been determined, but it looks like "as many as 52 or as little as 36" in 2009. Top Rank promoted 24 Telefutura cards in 2008. "To a large degree, this is replacing Telefutura," Arum said. "The big difference is that each of these shows will be shown in Mexico, where boxing is really hot, as well as in the United States. That gives it added clout, added resources, added everything. Telefutura was only in the United States, but the place where boxing is booming is Mexico." Most of the cards will take place in Mexico, but there will also be shows in California and the Southwest, Arum said. Another big difference is the new series, which is still untitled, will air some cards on Friday nights and some on Saturday nights. They also will start in prime time on the West Coast. When Telefutura televised boxing, it was locked into a 9 p.m. ET start, which moved to an 8 p.m. start later in the run. "We won't have that stupid 5 p.m. time for cards to start on the West Coast like we had with Telefutura," Arum said. "That was impossible. It made it really hard on the venues and on fans, who were still at work when the fights started. With this new series, we will combine our organization with Beltran's organization to put on a lot of fights." The five shows already in the works have a look similar to the kind of cards that were on "Solo Boxeo." The shows in the works: • Featherweight contender Orlando Salido and former lightweight champ Jose Luis Castillo are supposed to be in separate bouts on Jan. 17 in Hermosillo, Mexico. • Featherweight Jorge Solis and Monty Meza-Clay will meet Jan. 31 in Guadalajara in a title eliminator. The winner becomes the mandatory challenger for Cristobal Cruz. • A doubleheader involving lightweight contender Urbano Antillon and featherweight prospect Mikey Garcia is in the works, scheduled for Feb. 6 in Maywood, Calif. • Interim strawweight titleholder Manuel Vargas is slated for action Feb. 14 in Lagos de Moreno, Mexico. • Interim junior flyweight titleholder Cesar Canchila faces Giovanni Segura in a rematch on Feb. 28 in Toluca, Mexico. Canchila claimed the vacant interim belt with an exciting decision against Segura on the July 26 Antonio Margarito-Miguel Cotto undercard. Also in Toluca, Francisco Arce, the brother of Jorge Arce, is supposed to face South Africa's Simphiwe Ndogqayi in a junior bantamweight eliminator. "This is our first wave," Arum said. "We're going to have another series that I am not telling anybody details about yet. We're going to have maybe two times the number of shows in '09 that we had in '08. We had about 45 in '08. We may have 75 or more ." http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/notebook?page=notebook/boxingjanuary5 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Great News!!!!