By Matthew Hurley: After some speculation WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto will defend his title against Alfonso Gomez at the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City on April 12th. Cotto, 31-0 with 25 KOs is coming off an exciting twelve round unanimous decision victory over Sugar Shane Mosley in November, while Gomez, 18-3-2 with 8 KOs was last seen winning a ten round decision over Ben Tackie in October.
Gomez, who came into public consciousness as a favorite player on the first season of the Contender series stepped up to garner bigger opportunities when he sent a fading Arturo Gatti into retirement after seven mostly one-sided rounds. Cotto, a former junior welterweight belt holder, will be making his fourth defense of his welterweight title which he won from Carlos Quintana back in 2006..
The fight will be broadcast on HBO.
The final pay-per-view numbers for the Roy Jones Jr. – Felix Trinidad bout at Madison Square Garden this past Saturday night resulted in 500,000 pay-per-view subscriptions and nearly $25 million in television revenue.
According to HBO’s Mark Taffet those numbers included 300,000 cable subscriptions and 200,000 satellite buys. Taffet, speaking to ESPN, said he expects those numbers to rise.
“The Jones – Trinidad fight exceeded our expectations both in and out of the ring,” he said. “They proved that they still have a large, adoring fan base and they gave their fans their money’s worth.”
HBO will air the replay of Jones – Trinidad Saturday night at 10:00 pm Eastern Standard Time. The replay will be followed by the heavyweight elimination bout between Alexander Povetkin and Eddie Chambers
Finally ESPN’s Dan Rafael reports that promoter Bob Arum is already looking ahead to Kelly Pavlik’s first middleweight title defense. Pavlik, who fights Jermain Taylor on February 16th in a rematch of their September brawl which saw the ‘Ghost’ lift the middleweight championship with a seventh round knockout, may defend his belts on June 7th at Madison Square Garden. The Pavlik – Taylor rematch is being fought at a catch-weight of 166 pounds which means Pavlik’s middleweight belts will not be on the line. The bout will take place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and will be televised on HBO pay-per-view.
According to Arum, Irish John Duddy, looks to be the leading candidate.
“I’ve met with the Duddy people,” Arum told Rafael. “We had a nice meeting. He’ll be Pavlik’s next opponent. They want the fight.”