By Chris Williams: WBO welterweight champion Jeff ‘The Hornet’ Horn (18-0-1, 12 KOs) will be fighting #1 WBO Terence Crawford (32-0, 23 KOs) next in early 2018, according to their promoter Bob Arum. The Top Rank boss Arum says the Horn-Crawford fight is all set contractually, and he’ll be having a meeting with the other Top Rank executives this Thursday to plan the date for the fight, as well as the date for Manny Pacquiao’s next fight.
By Chris Williams: Bob Arum says he’s signed IBF World super flyweight champion Jerwin Ancajas (28-1-1, 19 KOs) to a 3-fight deal with his Top Rank company, and he plans on making a star out of the hard hitting Filipino. If Ancajas, 25, wins his 3 fights in 2018, Arum says he’ll sign him up to another 3-fight deal in 2019. Arum believes he can make a big name out of Ancajas if he keeps winning the way he’s been doing.
By Chris Williams: Manny Pacquiao will be fighting in April, according to his Top Rank promoter Bob Arum. The recently turned 39-year-old Pacquiao WON’T be fighting on the undercard of Jeff Horn vs. Terence Crawford on April 21, if that fight even takes place.
By Jim Dower: WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn’s successful title defense against challenger Gary Corcoran on December 13 brought in excellent viewing numbers on ESPN despite the early morning hours the fight was televised on in the U.S. Horn vs. Corcoran averaged 284,000 viewers on ESPN in the U.S, according to Dan Rafael.
By Chris Williams: Mikey Garcia says he’s ready and willing to fight Vasyl Lomachenko next year in the summer once he moves up to the lightweight division. However, Garcia (37-0, 30 KOs) has strong doubts that Lomachenko’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank will let him take the fight with him.
By Chris Williams: Guillermo Rigondeaux (17-0, 11 KOs) had zero problems making weight for his contest for Saturday night against WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko (9-1, 7 KOs) at Madison Square Garden in New York. Rigondeaux weighed in well under the limit for the division in weighing 128.4 pounds. His opponent Lomachenko weighed a little bit more at 129 lbs.
By Jim Dower: The World Boxing Organization revealed on Sunday that Top Rank has requested that #1 WBO Oleksandr Gvozdyk (14-0, 12 KOs) to be made the mandatory challenger to new WBO World light heavyweight champion Sergey ‘The Krusher’ Kovalev (31-2-1, 27 KOs).
By Chris Williams: With Manny Pacquiao (59-7-2, 38 KOs) saying he doesn’t have time in his busy schedule to face WBO welterweight champion Jeff Horn (17-0-1, 11 KOs) in a rematch in November, Horn’s co-promoter Dean Lonergan is going to discuss with Pacquiao’s promoter’s at Top Rank the possibility of matching Horn against 42-year-old former 2-time super middleweight champion Anthony Mundine (47-8, 27 KOs).
By Gav Duthie: Terence ‘Bud’ Crawford carved his name in the history books on Saturday night when he became the first undisputed champion of boxing since Jermaine Taylor 12 years ago. It has been extremely difficult to become fully unified champion since the WBO became mainstream in the late 90s as all 4 organizations (WBC, WBA, IBF, WBO) rarely sanction fights against each other.
By Chris Williams: WBO super featherweight champion Vasyl Lomachenko and Guillermo Rigondeaux could be facing each other on December 9 on ESPN at Madison Square Garden in New York. Lomachenko’s promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank let Dan Rafael know about a deal that he has in place for Lomachenko (9-1, 7 KOs) to face super bantamweight champion Rigondeaux (17-0, 11 KOs).