Ortiz vs Berto II: Fight Could Move to June 23 at Staples Center
by Scott Christ on Feb 22, 2012 11:11 PM EST
in Boxing News Analysis
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Lance Pugmire of the LA Times reports that Golden Boy's Richard Schaefer is trying to finalize a new date and venue for the postponed Victor Ortiz vs Andre Berto rematch, with June 23 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles the new target. The bout was originally set for February 11 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, but was canceled when Berto suffered a bicep injury.
Schaefer says that the May 19 fight in Las Vegas between Lamont Peterson and Amir Khan prompted him to try moving this rematch to Los Angeles:
@latimespugmire
Lance Pugmire Schaefer: "After we moved the Khan-Peterson fight to Vegas, we decided we still wanted a major fight in LA. LA deserves it." #boxing
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One might question whether or not Los Angeles deserves major fights, since the last two Golden Boy-promoted events in the area were utter flops at the gate.
While Hopkins vs Dawson in October was simply a fish out of water on the west coast, the fight in December between Abner Mares and Joseph Agbeko, with a good co-feature, was a glorious disaster, selling just 1,161 tickets (with 918 comps to make the Honda Center in Anaheim look better) for a $70,313 gate. That fight truly deserved better, but Los Angeles wasn't interested in the fight.
I'd be interested to see how Ortiz vs Berto does in LA, though -- it's not going to be a hot ticket in Vegas, and Berto has no fan base anywhere. His last fight was in Mississippi, for God's sake, against a Slovenian guy no one here had heard of (but who sold about half the tickets, it seemed, with a traveling fan faction), and the first Ortiz-Berto fight was in Connecticut. Canelo Alvarez's September fight at Staples with Alfonso Gomez did OK, but Ortiz isn't Alvarez. Does he have the local fans to bring in a crowd?
Showtime will still televise the rematch, as originally planned.
On a side note, is it just me or is the Staples Center a total wannabe boxing venue? They keep putting events there, and there's a damn statue of Oscar De La Hoya outside even though he only fought there one time, and even considering the building is relatively new, he didn't fight much in LA period in his career. It's like people want it to be a boxing venue but don't want to earn the stripes. I don't know. Like I said, I'm not against the idea of putting Ortiz-Berto there, but I also won't be surprised if it flops.
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One might question whether or not Los Angeles deserves major fights
No, one cannot! Because Richard Schaefer says so.
On a side note, is it just me or is the Staples Center a total wannabe boxing venue?
BLH is a bunch of haters…
But on a serious note I will definitely go if this goes to Staples. I’m not sure how well it will sell, but I don’t think it’ll do much better anywhere else so hell why not!
I think people are just enamored with the Staples Center because of the huge turnout for Margarito-Mosley. They mistake it for a big fight place, but really Margarito was on top of the world at the time. Ortiz doesn’t seem to resonate with Mexican fans nearly as well as Margarito did.
He's from Kansas
Margarito is Mexican by comparison, having been raisedin Riverside.
Mosely is East LA.
"Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer"
---- Muhammed Ali
Yeah and Vitali fought Lewis there too, but in terms of the average title fight it will generally be a letdown.
Scott
Where is the ‘laugh button’ on this site.
they must be kidding with this site. Or maybe just interested in the site fees
"Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer"
---- Muhammed Ali
Where is the 'laugh botton' on this site, Scott
I cant seem to stp laughing long enough to find it
"Silence is golden when you can't think of a good answer"
---- Muhammed Ali
I think this fight can draw in LA. Their first fight got a lot of attention during the run up to Mayweather-Ortiz and after the way that fight ended people started having opinions about Ortiz. Be it good or bad he has a name in the mainstream media.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he really ups the crazy talk for this fight. I liked their first fight and now Ortiz seems to have this “I wonder what’s going to happen this time” interest.
Plus, boxing is back on the rise, I don’t care what anyone says.
your concern here, is of course, very valid. however i personally am a fan of bringing boxing outside of vegas. i mean dont get me wrong, i like vegas an all and is the mecca of boxing but nowadays vegas is home to any old boxer with enough promotional backing to get a venue. vegas used to be the home to great fights and what about the days of ali? when a world title was defending around the world? i guess my point is, so long as this fight doesnt flop, which it shouldnt if theres a strong enough fan base for boxing there they should want to see this fight, then trying to make la a big fight city can only be a good thing, imo. whether or not that happens is of course another issue entirely
Oh I’m a fan of taking boxing outside of Vegas when it makes sense to do so, too. I don’t think this was a great Vegas fight by any means. But I just don’t know about LA as a fight town at this point. I hope they do well, don’t get me wrong.
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by Scott Christ on Feb 23, 2012 5:03 PM EST up reply actions
Basketball town
California is good boxing country, but LA is a basketball town. Time and time again, professional sports try to supplant the NBA and fail.
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