Exclusive: Bob Arum Talks TR’s Expiring Deal, MSG Booked For P.R. Parade Wknd In June & Loma

Top Rank will have its annual NYC event to coincide with the Puerto Rican Day Parade weekend, bossman Bob Arum said, on Thursday afternoon.

“The Garden is reserved,” said the Bobfather, sounding hale, hearty, and hopeful in a catch-up phoner. “Probably it’s Xander Zayas” as the feature attraction, he stated, noting that there is time to figure it out because the parade is Sunday, June 8.

First things first, he said, tickets went on sale for the just-announced Naoya Inoue US return on May 4 against 26-1 Texan Ramon Cardenas. “The Inoue tickets are selling like mad,” the promoter said. He is thinking the T-Mobile will get filled that night, or real close to it. “Capacity is about 21, 22,000. There will be a lot of people coming from Japan, but we will rely on casino customers and Japanese fans here. The MGM has bought a large block.”

Inoue A Monster Superstar The World Over

I asked, is the superlative super bantamweight Inoue (age 31; 29-0, 26 KOs) a superstar here, being that it can be out of site/ out of mind in this era? Or does he sort of have to “prove it” by filling the arena? Inoue last fought in America on June 19, 2021, stopping Michael Dasmarinas at the Virgin Hotel in Vegas.

You might chuckle, I did, when the 93-year-old Arum lightly thundered that he didn’t really give AF about “pound for pound” and whether “The Monster” is the best pugilist pound for pound among actives. “He is a superstar, all over, as (Shohei) Ohtani is in MLB,” Arum said. “Who cares about pound for pound?”

Well, I might boast about it if the guy was on my roster, I weakly responded while howling quietly.

Anything On Next For Loma?

And beyond the Inoue return to America after eight gigs in Japan, what else is in the works? Arum expects to know what path majestic technical wizard Vasiliy Lomachenko, the 37-year-old Ukrainian master craftsman, might take “soon.” No hints on the possible path. But…

“Plans are going forward with network/platform partners,” he said, “and in the next month or so we’ll know.”

Forgive me, I didn’t fish for a hint there. I didn’t think he’d want to talk speculative partners. So, we can restart those engines of speculation, friends.

Michael Woods

Michael Woods got addicted to boxing in 1990, when Buster Douglas shocked the world with his demolition of the then-impregnable Mike Tyson. The Brooklyn-based journalist has covered the sport since for ESPN The Magazine, ESPN.com, Bad Left Hook and RING. His journalism career started with NY Newsday in 1999. Michael Woods is also an accomplished blow by blow and color man, having done work for Top Rank, DiBella Entertainment, EPIX, and for Facebook Fightnight Live, since 2017.

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