Top Rank needs TV dates for fighters, talks to Showtime
Well, I guess you kinda need the networks after all.
Although Top Rank promoter is planning on distributing the Nov. 5th Pacquiao-Vargas PPV himself, his company doesn't own a television network so his stable of fighters still need TV dates. RingTV.com now reports that Arum has scheduled a meeting with Showtime later on this month (chief rival of his usual HBO partner) in an effort to secure dates for marquee names such as Timothy Bradley, Terence Crawford, and Vasyl Lomachenko.
"We have a meeting to discuss Lomachenko with Showtime," Arum said. "As far as HBO is concerned, they could do (his next fight) but they got no money. It's not only Lomachenko — it's Tim Bradly, it's Terence Crawford. We're going to bring up all of our fighters."
Lomachenko, Bradley, and Crawford all want to fight before the year is up and Arum believes Al Haymon's hearty stable of fighters -- most of whom reside on Showtime -- could provide plenty incentive for him to jump ship on HBO in lieu of their network rival.
Specifically Arum mentions the possibilities of matching Tim Bradley against fighters like Danny Garcia, Keith Thurman, and Shawn Porter - which would all be intriguing fights. He also mentions all of the awesome possibilities for Terence Crawford if he were to be matched against someone in Haymon's stable.
So while Arum laments HBO's current budget situation, he says that he has to do what's in the best interest of his fighters.
"HBO has been a good partner of ours, but if they don't have money they don't have money," Arum went on. "If they have a budget situation where they can't come up with money for fights — I understand that and we as a company can live through that. But these fighters have limited careers. You can't tell a fighter they can't fight because one network doesn't have any money. They would tell you, ‘Well, go see a network that does have money.'"
So, just for the sake of discussion, if you could make one dream fight between fighters aligned with Top Rank and Al Haymon, which match-up would interest you most?
