Top Rank eyes June for resumption of boxing in Las Vegas

Top Rank chairman Bob Arum is ready for boxing to resume, provided it can do so safely amid the coronavirus pandemic.

“Essentially, we can cover all the bases, and we can do it safely provided we get our hands on adequate testing,” Arum said. “Once you can do testing, you can do all of this safely and soundly and keep it going until we’re able to do events with spectators.”

Arum said he’s optimistic Top Rank can begin staging cards by June and that his company is working with the Nevada Athletic Commission and “various people in Nevada” to figure out how to do so. Top Rank is headquartered in Las Vegas, and events could be held without spectators inside a ballroom at a hotel-casino.

Cards would be limited to fighters already in the United States, and Arum said they could safely prepare in quarantine at Top Rank’s spacious gym, which is being sanitized in preparation for training. The fighters and their camps would be tested before any event, along with referees, judges, announcers and anybody else affiliated with the production.

“We are going to proceed in a safe and sound way,” Arum said. “Other people in other sports may do it differently. But I’m not going to be a cowboy in this case that the mantra should be, ‘The show must go on.’ … That’s not for me, and I’m not going to do it.”

Fights would be televised on ESPN or ESPN Plus, with whom Top Rank has a multiyear deal, and cards would be limited to four or five fights, Arum said. Main events would feature fighters who have already appeared on ESPN.

Arum also said it’s too soon to say when heavyweights Tyson Fury and Deontay Wilder could conclude their trilogy. Fury stopped Wilder in February at the MGM Grand Garden to win the WBC heavyweight championship, and Wilder exercised a rematch clause built into the contract. A fight of that magnitude would necessitate a live audience, Arum said.

“For me to prognosticate, we know we postponed July for that fight to October. Will we be able to do it for spectators in October? God only knows,” Arum said. “I’m inclined to doubt it. … I think that we’ll be lucky to do events with spectators early next year.”

But fighters are eager to return to the ring, with or without spectators.

“The situation is, you fight with no spectators or you don’t fight,” Arum said. “And once you put it to them that way, they say, ‘Well, we’d rather fight.”

Contact reporter Sam Gordon at sgordon@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BySamGordon on Twitter.