By Chris Williams: Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez is working on a compromise with Top Rank and ESPN to stage the important lightweight clash between WBA champion Jorge Linares and Vasyl Lomachenko on May 12th at Madison Square Garden in New York.
According to Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports News, Gomez is working with ESPN and Top Rank to have the Lomachenko-Linares fight take place earlier in the evening before the start time of the Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin vs. Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez 2 replay on HBO. Golden Boy doesn’t want the Lomachenko-Linares fight to run at the same time as the HBO televised Canelo-GGG replay. Having both fights televised at the same time on different networks would hurt the viewing numbers for both.
Bob Arum of Top Rank wants the 29-year-old Lomachenko (10-1, 8 KOs), who he sees as the best fighter since Muhammad Ali, to stay on the May 12th date. Arum does not want to move Lomachenko from that date, which makes an untenable situation unless he’s willing to let the fight take place before the Golovkin-Canelo replay on HBO starts. The Lomachenko vs. Linares fight would need to end BEFORE the start time of the Canelo vs. Golovkin 2 replay starts on HBO.
”We want this fight very badly and we’ve worked to try to find a way to make it happen,” Gomez said to Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports News. ”We have a contract with ESPN and this is a possible solution. If they move up the fight, then it works for everyone and it’s the best possible outcome. They’re considering it, so we’re hopeful. They’re definitely considering it so that would be great,” Gomez said.
Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya offered to add the Linares vs. Lomachenko fight to the Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul Canelo Alvarez 2 replay on HBO on the 12th of May. De La Hoyas solution is to have HBO purchase the Lomachenko-Linares fight and add it to the card, which he states the network would easily do. However, Top Rank has a contract with ESPN, and they seem to prefer to have the fight staged on that network.
If the Lomachenko-Linares fight can’t be made, then we’ll see Lomachenko face WBO lightweight champion Raymundo Beltran (35-7-1, 21 KOs) on May 12th at Madison Square Garden in New York. Beltran, 36, won the vacant World Boxing Organization 135 lb. title earlier this month in beating 39-year-old Paulus Moses by a 12 round unanimous decision in a fight televised on ESPN from Reno, Nevada. Beltran is also promoted by Top Rank, so it would be an in house fight for the company.
While technically that would work for Arum in having his fighter Lomachenko stay on the May 12th date, there would zero interest from the casual and hardcore boxing fans in a fight between these 2 fighters. Beltran is not a star. He’s an aging fighter with a lot of defeats on his record, who took advantage of a situation in which Terry Flanagan vacated his WBO lightweight title and moved up to light welterweight to fight for the vacant WBO 140 lb. title in that weight class against Maurice Hooker. If not for Flanagan moving up in weight, Beltran likely would have never own the WBO lightweight title. Flanagan is talented fighter, and he probably would have easily out-boxed Beltran. Beltran is not a good enough fighter to interest the boxing public in a fight between him and Lomachenko. That’s why it’s important Top Rank make a deal with Golden Boy Promotions and ESPN to have Limares fight Lomachenko on May 12th. If that fight can’t get made, Lomachenko vs. Beltran will be a poor substitute for that match-up.
Lomachenko vs. Linares is a good fight for the lightweight division. It’s obviously not a huge fight in the Canelo vs. Golovkin class, but it’s an excellent one for the 135 lb. weight class, which doesn’t get a lot of attention from the boxing public. There are only 2 popular fighters in the lightweight division and that’s Linares and Mikey Garcia. Neither of them are pay-per-view attractions in the U.S. Mikey had the chance to fight Linares, but he made a silly mistake of moving up to the light welterweight division to challenge obscure IBF belt holder Sergey Lipinets for his title on March 10. Mikey assumed that Linares would sit idly by and just wait for him to get done with his fight with Lipinets. Mikey could miss out on the Linares fight. That doesn’t mean Mikey won’t still be able to fight Linares, but he would have to wait until he gets done with his match against Lomachenko. If Linares loses badly to Lomachenko, then Mikey gains nothing fighting him. The only thing Mikey could accomplish fighting Linares with him coming off of a loss would be for him to try and beat him in a better fashion than Lomachenko did. Mikey likely will get zero credit for beating Linares from the boxing public. Mikey would be better off vacating his WBC lightweight title and staying at light welterweight. As badly as Mikey miscalculated in opting to move up to 140 to challenge Lipinets, it’s possible he’d still want to fight Linares even if he’s totally dominated by Lomachenko.