Top Rank promoter Bob Arum talks to Fight Hype about this Thursday night’s Top Rank card headlined by Shakur Stevenson vs Edwin De Los Santos. Obviously Thursday night is an awkward one for world class boxing in the U.S., and Arum makes it clear it’s being done at the request of ESPN leading into their Formula 1 weekend event. Here’s some of what he had to say.
Arum on putting the Stevenson vs De La Rosa fight on a Thursday night in an attempt to gain traction from the F1 crowd
“Thursday night is a very tough night to do a big fight because people have to work on Friday and I’m not sure that the Formula 1 people care about boxing, I just don’t know. But the reason this fight is on a Thursday night is because ESPN is doing Formula 1 on the weekend and they wanted to use the boxing telecast to in effect help promote the telecast of Formula 1. That’s the reason.
“We were asked to do a Thursday night fight prior to Formula 1 by ESPN and obviously we’re going to accommodate ESPN. Similarly we’re going to do a Thursday night fight next year before the Super Bowl for the same reason.”
On if he believes this Thursday night card will perform well
“Again, whether it turns out well, turned out well, or not, we were asked to do it by ESPN who goes a long way to paying our bills and we’re certainly going to accommodate whatever they want. I mean, you know, it’s not like a great, genius move on our part that we figured out and made determinations. ESPN asked us to do it, and so we’re doing it.”
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