Top Rank Promotions CEO, Bob Arum, told FanHouse that the Jan. 29 winner of an HBO televised junior welterweight (140 pounds) clash between southpaw WBC champ Devon Alexander, of St. Louis, Mo., and WBO counter part Tim Bradley, of Palm Springs, Calif., could "merit" a berth opposite eight-division king Manny Pacquiao, also holder of the WBO welterweight (147 pounds) and WBC junior middleweight (154 pounds) belts.
The 23-year-old Alexander (21-0, 13 knockouts) and the 27-year-old Bradley (26-0, 11 KOs) will meet at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michh., while the 32-year-old Pacquiao (52-3-2, 38 KOs) will defend his WBO crown against 39-year-old, three-division, five-time titlist Shane Mosley (46-6-1, 39 KOs) on May 7 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.
Arum spoke to FanHouse in this Q&A.
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FanHouse: Could the winner of Devon Alexander-Tim Bradley elevate himself to the level where he could be considered for a mega fight that would be lucrative for Manny Pacquiao?
Bob Arum: Absolutely. Of course. That merits some consideration. It would of course depend a lot on how good the winner looked in the fight that they had with each other.
But absolutely, assuming that they looked good, I would definitely consider either one of them for that fight.
What is your assessment of Devon Alexander and of Tim Bradley as fighters from a promotional standpoint?
I think that they each have excellent skill sets, and I think that they could give Manny Pacquiao a very good fight.
I think that at this particular point that the thing that they lack is really recognition with respect to the public.
Do you believe that the Alexander-Bradley fight will earn the winner the recognition that he needs to lend credence to the promotion of a fight with Manny Pacquiao?
Probably not, because, instead of putting it in a high-visibility location where they would draw a significant crowd, I think that they buried the fight by putting it Pontiac.
In Pontiac, I don't think that that's a place where that fight is going to get a particularly large attendance or any attendance really at all. That's really unfortunate.
Considering the sort of promotions that you've been successful with at The Dallas Cowboys Stadium and at The New York Yankee Stadium, what would you have done with this fight?
I would have put it in a place where it would scream, 'Big Fight!' That would be, you know, a number of places. I assume that Tim Bradley didn't want to fight in Devon Alexander's home town of St. Louis.
But that's where the fight belonged. So I think that for me, that fight should have been in Madison Square Garden in New York, or even in a big casino in Las Vegas.
Some place where it would have created a real buzz. Some place where the writers who are covering it would have incentive to go.
It's very, very hard to expect writers to travel out of Detroit to go to see a fight that is not going to draw anybody because it's in a building that is closed for various reasons.
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