Arum Lines Up Top Fights for 2006

Bob Arum is not the giddy type. But the chairman of the board of Top Rank Inc. on Tuesday seemed downright thrilled at what he will be providing boxing fans during the upcoming year.It begins Jan. 21, when Erik Morales and Manny Pacquiao square off in a rematch at Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas. Then Feb. 4, Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo will meet in a third fight, a lightweight championship rubber match that will take place in El Paso, Texas.Antonio Margarito will defend his World Boxing Organization welterweight belt against Manuel Gomez on Feb. 18 at the Aladdin in Las Vegas and Miguel Cotto will defend his WBO junior welterweight belt against Raul Balbi on March 4 in Puerto Rico.It gets better. Hasim Rahman will make a defense of his WBC heavyweight championship against James "Lights Out" Toney on March 18 in Atlantic City. And, perhaps biggest of all, Floyd Mayweather Jr. will challenge welterweight champion Zab Judah for one of his three titles - the World Boxing Council belt - on April 8 at Thomas & Mack Center.That's just the terrific beginning."Every two weeks we have a fight through the beginning of April," Arum said. "We're going to take a look at who comes out victorious, and we'll start planning fights for May. We have some great fights we're going to do this year."If they are both successful, we are thinking of matching Cotto and Castillo (both of whom are promoted by Arum) and then have the winner fight Mayweather if Mayweather beats Judah, in the fall. We are also looking for some big fights with Morales. If Morales beats Pacquiao, we would be looking for a rematch with Zahir Raheem and also maybe a fight with Jaun Manuel Marquez."Of the Top Rank fights already set, there is no question that the Rahman-Toney and Mayweather-Judah matchups are the most outstanding. Arum recently re-signed Mayweather to a two-year contract, and Arum said Tuesday he is hopeful that a victory over Judah will help Mayweather become the marketable commodity the top pound-for-pound fighter in the world should be."I think this fight with Judah will do that," Arum said. "Judah is very competitive with him and it will be a really interesting match; it will be high visibility."And I think it's clear that, unlike the (Arturo) Gatti fight, where Floyd was the B side, he's going to be the A side in this matchup."Mayweather is 35-0 with 24 knockouts. He is 14-0 in world title fights and has won championships in the super featherweight, lightweight and super lightweight divisions. Despite Mayweather's incredible talent, he has not been able to capture the public's imagination like other greats of past and present. The reasons are a matter of opinion, but the bottom line is, Mayweather is only 28 and his story has not yet been completely written."It's not too late; we still have a number of years to go," Arum said. "He's really right up there with the great fighters (Arum has promoted). He's right up there with Sugar Ray Leonard, with Marvin Hagler. With Alexis Arguello. He's one of the best."He has incredibly fast reflexes and is probably the smartest of all the fighters since Muhammad Ali."Switching gears to Toney-Rahman, we seem to have a heavyweight title fight with some bite. Vitali Klitschko-Rahman, which was to take place last month, would have been a somewhat high-profile fight, but now that Klitschko has retired, this seems to be the next best thing.That's why Arum went for it. He had already won a purse bid for Rahman-Klitschko, and after that bout was canceled because of a knee injury sustained by Klitschko, Arum went on record as saying how much he liked working with Rahman, who won his freedom from Don King in bankruptcy court before signing a 3-year contract with Arum.The WBC already had crowned interim champion Rahman as permanent champion, and it ordered negotiations begin for Rahman-Toney. Fifteeen minutes before a purse bid was to take place, Arum offered Toney and his co-promoters, Dan Goossen and King, $2.8 million, to allow him to promote the fight."They accepted a sum of money for themselves and Toney and we were off to the races," Arum said. "In other words, we bought them out."Goossen confirmed the dynamics of the deal, and added that he and King will retain rights to Toney after the fight with Rahman, regardless of who wins.Before we get to Toney-Rahman and Judah-Mayweather, however, there will be some business to take care of in El Paso - Castillo-Corrales III. To say this rivalry has been filled with controversy, would be an understatement.Corrales spitting out his mouthpiece after each of two knockdowns he suffered in the 10th round undoubtedly helped him recover enough to stop Castillo in the 10th in one of the greatest fights in history last May.And there is no question that Castillo not sweating out the last 3 1/2 pounds to make 135 helped him retain some added strength before he knocked out Corrales in the fourth round in the rematch last October. Castillo didn't win Corrales' WBO and WBC belts because he failed to make weight, but he probably didn't care after registering the spectacular knockout.Those two fights were in Las Vegas, where most of today's bigger fights are held. So, why El Paso for the third one?"Well, we've got so much in Las Vegas, we have to take some of these matches to other places," Arum said. "I mean, there's a limit to what Vegas can draw. And we don't want all big-time boxing to exclusively come out of Vegas. I have Morales-Pacquiao in Vegas, I have Margarito-(Gomez) in Vegas, I have Mayweather Jr.-(Judah) in Vegas."So, you gotta spread it around. Now, El Paso has done extremely well with Hispanic-type fights. I'll have a sold-out crown at the Don Haskins Center. So, it was a natural."(Taylor-Wright) Goossen promotes Sam Soliman, who recently did well in going the distance in a loss against Winky Wright, who is the mandatory challenger to the WBA and WBC middleweight belts held by Jermain Taylor, who also is WBO champion.Goossen on Tuesday said, "I am working on a fight for Sam Soliman to fight Jermain Taylor."Gary Shaw, who promotes Wright, scoffed at that notion when contacted by telephone Tuesday."I just talked to an Arkansas sports writer and he said Lou DiBella told him he wants Winky next," Shaw said.DiBella promotes Taylor, of Little Rock, Ark. He said he indeed told an Arkansas reporter he would like to make Taylor's next fight against Wright, but he still isn't certain it can be made to everyone's satisfaction.DiBella said that preliminary talks have begun with Goossen for a fight against Soliman. DiBella also said he has made a formal offer to representatives of Felix Sturm, the former WBO champion. A fight with either, as well as one with Howard Eastman, could be an alternative to Taylor-Wright, which has been ordered by the WBC.DiBella said that since the fight is slated for regular HBO, there is not enough money to satisfy Wright, or Taylor, for that matter. He said Wright would have to be satisfied with a 60-40 split of a medium-size purse."We're going to try and make the fight in Little Rock," DiBella said of Taylor-Wright. "Gary and I talked and frankly, it's a matter of dollars and cents."DiBella noted that he has no intention of allowing Taylor to be stripped of his WBC belt. A fight with anyone other than Wright would come only if Wright turned it down.