Amir Khan will face Devon Alexander on Dec. 13 in Las Vegas on Showtime
Promoter Oscar De La Hoya is going to be a busy man on Dec. 13. The Golden Boy told Yahoo Sports on Monday that he's finalizing details for a show at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas that night that will be headlined by a welterweight match between Amir Khan and Devon Alexander and broadcast on Showtime.
Top Rank and HBO have a show that night a block away at The Cosmopolitan, featuring Timothy Bradley against Diego Chaves in the main event. The Top Rank show will include Golden Boy's Mauricio Herrera facing Top Rank's Jose Benavidez in another televised fight.
The longstanding feud between Golden Boy and Top Rank is ending, and De La Hoya went to great pains to insist that adding the Dec. 13 show at Mandalay Bay wasn't an attempt to create an issue by counter-programming it.
"We at Golden Boy are partners with everyone and this is what you see here," De La Hoya said. "It couldn't be avoided [having the shows on the same night], so there will be different start times. I've talked to HBO about it. I've talked to [Top Rank president] Todd duBoef about it. I've talked to Showtime. We have so many dates and so many fighters, this couldn't be avoided, but the good thing is, we're giving the fans a great show and that's the most important thing."
De La Hoya said he'll attend the show at the Cosmopolitan to watch Herrera face Benavidez, then said he'll rush down Las Vegas Boulevard to Mandalay Bay to be there in time to watch his Showtime card. De La Hoya said a welterweight bout featuring the popular Keith Thurman will be an opener for Khan-Alexander at Mandalay Bay.
He also said his reconfigured Dec. 6 show on HBO will feature Gabe Rosado against David Lemieux and Hugo Centeno against James De La Rosa. That card, he said, may include a third televised fight. It is the card that takes the place of the bout that was to feature Canelo Alvarez against Joshua Clottey, which was canceled when Alvarez injured his ankle and withdrew from the fight.
De La Hoya said the shows are a prelude to what he hopes will be a sensational 2015. After a great year of televised fights in 2013, Showtime has largely missed the mark in 2014.
De La Hoya said he's planning to work with both networks and all promoters in 2015 to ensure a banner year of fights. He was in a battle with Richard Schaefer, the CEO of his company, for much of the year prior to Schaefer's resignation in June. There is sure to be legal action in that case.
But De La Hoya said he wanted to move forward from that and work toward the goal of putting on great fights on every show.
"I'm sticking by my promise to make the fights the fans want to see, as often as I can," De La Hoya said. "You know it yourself, when we make the fights the people want to see, it's good for everyone and everyone starts talking boxing. That's what we need. That's what I'm going to do.
"It's too bad about 2014, but 2014 is the year when all hell broke loose. It's when all the plotting was going on. We still have a couple of months left in the year and there will be other good fights, but I'm going to commit to establishing and maintaining relationships in boxing with all the networks and all the promoters so we can keep our promise to the fans and keep this sport at a high level."
