PAVLIK AGREES TO FIGHT ABRAHAM
PanARMENIAN.Net
25.03.2009 15:19 GMT+04:00
Bob Arum, Kelly Pavlik’s promoter, said THE RING 160-pound champion
and No. 1 Arthur Abraham have agreed in principal to fight – probably
in New York – if they win interim fights this summer. Pavlik faces
Sergio Mora in June; Abraham is expected to fight sometime after that.
The fight is expected in October or November, ringtv.com reports.
The Pavlik-Abraham fight would not be televised on pay per view
because of Abraham’s limited following in the United States.
"I wouldn’t do it on pay per view," Arum said. "But both networks,
HBO and Showtime, have shown enormous interest in that fight. So we
believe there’ll be enough money to make it worthwhile.
"Talks are going on right now. It’s going to happen. Kelly has
definitely signed off on it, and Abraham wants it too."
Pavlik (35-1, 31 knockouts) is only one fight removed from his
one-sided loss to Bernard Hopkins in October. He subsequently stopped
Marco Antonio Rubio in nine rounds last month.
Abraham (29-0, 23 KOs) is a dangerous opponent for Pavlik. The
Armenian-born German seems to be a complete fighter but would be
fighting in the U.S. for only the second and outside Germany for only
the third time.
"He’s ready," Arum said of Pavlik. "We make fights when they’re ready;
we make fights when they’re competitive. He lost to Hopkins so we got
him a confidence builder (in Rubio). Now, there’s no one other than
Mora with a name, an accomplished fighter. So he’ll fight Abraham if
he’s successful (in June). …
"It’s a good fight, a competitive fight. It doesn’t scare me. It’s
a fight we want to win, we hope to win. If we lose, we lose. There’s
not a … death sentence in losing. Only in the stupid evolution in
this sport did it become a crisis if a guy loses."
Abraham is coming off a one-sided decision over Lujuan Simon on March
14 in Germany, his ninth successful defense of his IBF belt. He said
he would move up to super middleweight after the Pavlik fight.
"In my heaven there is a room where you can watch fights that never
happened."
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