By Chris Williams: Golden Boy Promotions president Eric Gomez says if a fight with Vasyl Lomachenko isn’t possible for the time being, they’ll look to restart talks with Mikey Garcia for a fight. Lomachenko’s promoters at Top Rank want him to fight Linares on ESPN on May 12th. That’s not possible.
Golden Boy has their own show that will be taking place on the same night on HBO, which involves an important fight as well as the replay between Saul Canelo Alvarez vs. Gennady ‘GGG’ Golovkin II. Gomez says if Top Rank absolutely wants Lomachenko to fight Linares on May 12, then he has a salutation to the problem. Gomez says HBO will purchase the Linares vs. Lomachenko fight to televise on their network on the 12th of May, and they’ll pay more for the fight than what ESPN is willing or able to pay.
According to Yahoo Sports News, Gomez has already spoken to HBO about them purchasing the Linares-Lomachenko fight for May 12 and they’re on board with that. However, Gomez says if Lomachenko absolutely must fight on ESPN and nowhere else, then they’ll have to schedule the Linares fight for another date beyond May 12th, because that date won’t work for the fight.
”If Lomachenko absolutely, positively has to fight on ESPN, then we’ll accept any other date. We’ll do it on any other date they have,” Gomez said to Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports News.
Arum says Peter Nelson of HBO forbade Golden Boy to schedule the Linares vs. Lomachenko fight on the May 12th date on ESPN due to the Canelo vs. Golovkin II replay being televised on that date. Linares-Lomachenko taking place on ESPN would interfere with the Canelo vs. Golovkin replay on HBO.
So, there it is. There’s no point in Top Rank promoter Bob Arum wasting his breath talking about matching Lomachenko against Linares for May 12 on ESPN, because it doesn’t look like it’s going to happen. Arum’s Plan-B for Lomachenko is to have him fight Raymundo Beltran, who he promotes. Beltran is fighting for the vacant WBO lightweight title this weekend against Paulus Moses. As long as Beltran wins the WBO 135 lb. title, he’ll be the backup option for the 29-year-old Lomachenko to fight on ESPN on May 12. It won’t be the fight that the 86-year-old Arum wants between Lomachenko and Linares, but at least he can still stage a fight on May 12 involving the Ukrainian.
“We’ve been talking to HBO about getting a live event and it looks like we’re going to have a live fight. So those dates won’t work. Any other dates, we’re good with,” Gomez said about the May 12th date.
The fight between Lomachenko and Linares is a great one for the boxing fans. It’s an ideal match-up between 2 very good fighters. The fight isn’t in jeopardy. It’s obviously going to happen, but it’s not going to take place when Lomachenko’s promoter Bob Arum wants it to. It’s poor planning on Arum’s part for him not to have been aware that it wouldn’t work if he tried to schedule the fight on the same night as Golden Boy Promotion’s replay of the Gennady Golovkin vs. Saul Canelo Alvarez II fight on May 12 on HBO. Did Arum forget the Canelo-Golovkin II replay was taking place on HBO on May 12 or did he just assume that it would be no big deal for him to try and setup a fight between Golden Boy fighter Linares and Lomachenko for that date? Lomachenko will be fighting on ESPN on May 12 at Madison Square Garden in New York.
A representative with HBO told Yahoo Sports News that they have the rights to Linares’ next fight. That means that when Linares does fight, it’ll be on HBO, not ESPN. Arum can take care of the problem by letting Lomachenko fight Linares on HBO on May 12th, because they appear to be willing to televise the fight as part of the same broadcast as the Canelo vs. GGG II replay. That would make for a huge night of boxing on HBO if they can televise the Linares vs. Lomachenko fight after the Canelo vs. Golovkin 2 replay. However, it doesn’t look like Arum is interested in having Lomachenko fight Linares on HBO on May 12. He wants the fight to take place on ESPN, who he recently signed a multi-year deal to have his Top Rank fighters perform for that network. If Lomachenko can only fight on ESPN, then it’s going to limit what he can so in cases like this with the Linares fight. If the idea for Top Rank was just for their fighter Lomachenko to fight on May 12th period against Linares, they could let HBO purchase it and it would go ahead on that date. It doesn’t look like that’s possible.
As for Linare’s back up plan Mikey Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs), he has a fight scheduled against IBF light welterweight champion Sergey Lipinets (13-0, 10 KOs) on March 10th on Showtime Boxing in San Antonio Texas. If Garcia destroys Lipinets quickly without suffering an injury or taking a lot of punishment, then it’s possible he could face Linares on May 12. It’s doubtful Mikey would want to get back into the ring that fast after the Lipinets fight. Golden Boy can still schedule Linares vs. Garcia for June or July on HBO. It would be a great fight for the boxing fans. It would be bad for Top Rank if Linares loses to Garcia though. Instead of a fight between Lomachenko and Linares, it would be the Ukrainian fighter facing the far more dangerous Mikey Garcia. Will Bob Arum be willing to risk Lomachenko against Mikey? I have strong doubts he’ll be willing to risk Lomachenko’s future by matching him against Garcia, because he’s too big of a puncher.
Mikey Garcia has got to be overjoyed at hearing about Golden Boy Promotions not being interested in scheduling the Linares vs. Lomachenko fight for May 12th. Mikey now has an excellent chance of facing Linares as long as he beats Lipinets on March 10.