After Top Rank’s plans to match Brandon Rios with IBF welterweight champion Kell Brook fell through recently – for a host of reported reasons, chief of which is now believed to be financial minutiae – their attentions quickly turned on matching “Bam Bam” with another Top Rank fighter, new WBO welterweight champion Tim Bradley, hopefully in December.
However, late last week the WBO ordered Bradley and Top Rank to begin negotiations for a mandatory defence against up and coming unbeaten New Yorker Sadam Ali, who is promoted by Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy.
The two camps have 30 days to broker a deal before a purse bid is scheduled.
Speaking to ESPN.com Top Rank vice president Carl Moretti said,
“There are a lot of balls in the air and we’re trying to figure it all out, but (Bradley-Rios is) a fight we want to make.”
It is a fight that broadcaster HBO is also keen on, and with no objections from the WBO, what is possible is that Ali and Golden Boy will agree upon a step-aside to allow the mooted Bradley/Rios bout to go ahead, as can often be the case in such situations. That leaves Ali with the option to fight a tune up while he waits out his shot at the winner, possibly boxing on October’s Golovkin/Lemieux HBO PPV card.
“We’ll listen to what Top Rank has to say, of course,” Golden Boy promoter Oscar De La Hoya also told ESPN.com. “I just need to talk to Bob (Arum) and see what they have in mind and see if it makes sense for Sadam Ali and for Golden Boy Promotions.”
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