Arum: Loma, Lopez Turned Down Interim Bouts; Planning Their Fight For September

Bob Arum offered Vasiliy Lomachenko and Teofimo Lopez interim bouts recently.

Lomachenko could’ve fought an opponent other than Lopez in June. Lopez would’ve been able to face someone other than Lomachenko in July.

Neither lightweight champion was interested in any bout but theirs, thus their promoter hopes to put it together for September.

“We wanted to stall for time, until we were able to do the fight with a live audience,” Arum told *******.com on Tuesday. “But it’s clear that each of them wanna go right into that fight, so that’s what we’re gonna be planning for September, with or without an audience.”

“Obviously, we would love to do that fight with an audience,” Arum said. “But again, how realistic is that? When are we gonna be able to do fights with an audience? Once we get Loma here, which Egis [Klimas, Lomachenko’s manager] tells me we’re gonna try to bring him here in the beginning of June, then we’re gonna set a date for that fight. And if we can’t do it with spectators, we’re gonna still do the fight. It may very well be that we have to do that fight without spectators. But we can’t keep everybody waiting while we hope to open it up to spectators.”

“The original plan was to give them each an interim fight,” Arum said. “Loma was against that, and so was Lopez. We said, ‘Listen, we’re gonna postpone it because we don’t know when we can get a live audience.’ And our plan was in June and July to give Loma a fight and give Lopez a fight. And they each turned that down. They said they’re prepared to wait until September to fight each other.”

The September timetable is predicated on Lomachenko’s ability to enter the United States from Ukraine. Arum doesn’t anticipate that trip becoming problematic for the two-time Olympic gold medalist because Ukraine isn’t among the countries included in the United States’ travel ban.

“If you don’t have your visa, you’re out of luck now,” Arum explained, “because the consulates are shut down and there’s a hold on granting visas. So, you have to already have a visa. And then, you have to be from a country where you can get in [to the United States]. For example, we can’t get an Englishman in. We can’t get a European in, except if he comes from one of the old Soviet block countries, because for some crazy reason the travel ban doesn’t affect those people. So, if it’s Lomachenko, we fly him into Moscow, and we fly him over here. And that’s OK because Loma has a green card.”

 

Would've been nice to see them both fight this summer then square off against each other in September but it is what it is.

I guess it'll be on ppv but who knows.