By Steve Kim
While WBO super featherweight titlist, Vasyl Lomachenko, has an August 5th assignment against Miguel Marriaga at the Microsoft Theater at LA Live on ESPN, promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank says it wont be the last time we see ‘Hi-Tech’ in 2017.
“He’s going to fight again this year and I think Lomachenko is the one guy that could really deal with fighting four times a year,” said the veteran promoter, who says that under their new partnership with ESPN that all of their boxers will be afforded the opportunity to fight more often than in the past.
Lomachenko (8-1, 6 KO’s) last fought more than twice in a calendar year in 2014.
Back on April 8th, Lomachenko out-classed Jason Sosa in nine rounds in Oxon Hill, Maryland. Arum plans to keep the two-time Olympic gold medalist as active as possible.
“It’ll be a minimum of three (fights) but I would hope to do four and I would hope to get a hold of some opponents that we could then promote and make big pay-per-view fights down the road for Lomachenko next year,” Arum said.
But this wont just apply to the gifted Ukrainian, Arum noted to BoxingScene.com – “We’re re-doing all our contracts to guarantee our fighters three fights a year – minimum. And use our best best efforts to give them four.”
There used to be a time when all boxers – even the ones at the championship level – performed much more often. So what happened?
“It was like the Garden of Eden, ‘when the premium cable (networks) floated more money than the over-the-air networks were paying and we all bit into the apple because it was juicy and good, we ended up poisoning ourselves,” Arum explained last week at a press conference for Lomachenko-Marriaga.
www.boxingscene.com/top-rank-keep-lomachenko-others-more-active–118650