Comments Thread For: Bob Arum To Continue Fight Talks With Al Haymon, Showtime

[Canelo and GGG]

The only fighters that Arum has who may be worth anything to Showtime are Lomachenko (@130/126), Gilberto Ramirez (@168, to continue on with what they're doing with Jack/Degale/Bute/Callum Smith/etc) and Felix Verdejo (to line up a meaningful fight for Jose Pedraza @130/135).

No one else under the banner, that I can see, is worth the trouble of working with Arum. And I doubt that Arum offers any of those three fighters.

if he is not offering any of them well RIP Arum.

[Baltimore]

I'll believe this when I see it but it would open up a lot more great fight possibilities. As already said in this thread I think it would help Bradley and Crawford the most. Bradley has already really fought all options on HBO besides a possible Cotto fight.

[al-Xander]

There's virtually no more cold war excuse now. Any Haymon fighter can fight any TR fighter.

[gizzle909]

I'd love to see Porter and Bradley go at it

[Bronx2245]

If you can't beat 'em...

[KnickTillDeaTh]

I think Arum is genuine about working with Haymon, and PBC, but I don't believe it's by choice. HBO refusing to carry Pac's fight, and allowing a pretty lucrative PPV fighter (over 400k per fight) to walk, contract effectively canceled, I think this has underscored a new era for Top Rank, and Arum realized he has to either scramble to catch up, go the Don King route into obscurity with nothing but fringe fighters and putting on fights no one cares about, or play nice and build some stunning bridges. So hopefully this pans out for all involved, including the fans.

[Scipio2009]

if he is not offering any of them well RIP Arum.

Arum's bet is simple; keep the talk going (with enough HBO business to keep in the conversation) for long enough to see Kovalev and Golovkin get beat (Arum would nut his pants if Gilberto Ramirez was the guy to beat Golovkin).

With those guys out of the picture, K2 and Main Events no longer have anything under their banners that HBO will care for (maybe Golovkin vs Kovalev), leaving Top Rank and Golden Boy as the only companies with any depth for HBO to look to for fights.

As long as he's got a deeper stable than Golden Boy, he's simply playing for time; "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"

[Mitchell Kane]

Arum's bet is simple; keep the talk going (with enough HBO business to keep in the conversation) for long enough to see Kovalev and Golovkin get beat (Arum would nut his pants if Gilberto Ramirez was the guy to beat Golovkin).

Top Rank isn't just sitting back waiting for Golovkin or Kovalev to lose, they're also positioning their fighters...

With Golovkin, obviously they'd like to make a fight with Gilberto Ramirez...Ramirez had the injury setback, but he has a title at 168 and he's Mexican, which is the audience that Golovkin has largely been marketed to, especially in SoCal. Arum repeatedly brings up Golovkin when talking about Ramirez, and it's clear they're trying to position Ramirez as the #1 option for Golovkin if/when he moves up to 168.

With Kovalev, they've got Oleksandr Gvozdyk an important undercard fight against Chilemba on the Kovalev-Ward card. Gvozdyk is already ranked in the top 5-10 of some orgs...if he wins/looks good, his ranking will go up and he'll be close to a title shot, and then it becomes a question of which title belt they want to go after (currently he's WBC #4, right behind Beterbiev, #9 WBO #10 IBF).

[Canelo and GGG]

Arum's bet is simple; keep the talk going (with enough HBO business to keep in the conversation) for long enough to see Kovalev and Golovkin get beat (Arum would nut his pants if Gilberto Ramirez was the guy to beat Golovkin).

With those guys out of the picture, K2 and Main Events no longer have anything under their banners that HBO will care for (maybe Golovkin vs Kovalev), leaving Top Rank and Golden Boy as the only companies with any depth for HBO to look to for fights.

As long as he's got a deeper stable than Golden Boy, he's simply playing for time; "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king"

it may be like this but GGG wont take risk till Canelo figur i think that Ggg wont fight Zurdo Ever but K2 dont have many fighters i agree on this.but GBP have some deepths .

[Scipio2009]

Top Rank isn't just sitting back waiting for Golovkin or Kovalev to lose, they're also positioning their fighters...

With Golovkin, obviously they'd like to make a fight with Gilberto Ramirez...Ramirez had the injury setback, but he has a title at 168 and he's Mexican, which is the audience that Golovkin has largely been marketed to, especially in SoCal. Arum repeatedly brings up Golovkin when talking about Ramirez, and it's clear they're trying to position Ramirez as the #1 option for Golovkin if/when he moves up to 168.

With Kovalev, they've got Oleksandr Gvozdyk an important undercard fight against Chilemba on the Kovalev-Ward card. Gvozdyk is already ranked in the top 5-10 of some orgs...if he wins/looks good, his ranking will go up and he'll be close to a title shot, and then it becomes a question of which title belt they want to go after (currently he's WBC #4, right behind Beterbiev, #9 WBO #10 IBF).

The IBF and WBC both adhere to the efforts behind mandatory challengers challenge their champions (with the WBC obviously having leeway); for either of those belts, Gvozdyk is at least 3-4 fights away from being positioned to force anything, with two of those fights likely having to be against legit opposition.

No idea how good Gvozdyk is; Isaac Chilemba is as good a gauge test as any.