Two sites + two fights = one big night

By Joe Scalzo

Kelly Pavlik’s bout is the only local fight on Saturday’s pay-per-view broadcast.

YOUNGSTOWN — Saturday night’s pay-per-view broadcast features two big fights at two different sites, but Top Rank chairman Bob Arum is confident it won’t create one big headache.

“Our guys are experts,” he said. “They know how to do it.”

Saturday’s feature, which also has two undercard bouts from Madison Square Garden, costs $44.95 — $54.95 for high definition — and begins at 9 p.m.

The co-main event, a WBO welterweight title bout between Puerto Rico’s Miguel Cotto and the UK’s Michael Jennings, is set to begin around 10:15 p.m. with Kelly Pavlik’s WBC/WBO middleweight title bout against Mexico’s Marco Antonio Rubio following around 11.

The Cotto-Jennings bout will be shown live on big screens at the Chevy Centre, while the Pavlik-Rubio fight will be shown on big screens at Madison Square Garden.

“It’s going to be a terrific night of boxing,” said Arum.

Arum has done two-site broadcasts before, but they were on closed circuit television in the 1970s.

The multiple-site arrangement is not uncommon in other sports — CBS’s March Madness coverage is a good example — and while it poses some challenges (more equipment, more staff, more coordination), it also has some positives, Arum said. There are two ring mat sponsors (Corona beer is the main sponsor for the Pavlik bout) and two gates.

“So, net, net, net, it comes out on the plus side,” said Arum.

America’s two main boxing networks, HBO and Showtime, showed little interest in the event and it made more sense financially for Arum to broadcast it himself. He didn’t have that problem in Mexico, where the country’s No. 1 network, Televisa, is broadcasting the Pavlik bout and the No. 2 network, Azteca, is showing the Cotto fight.

“In Mexico, boxing is the No. 1 sport,” Arum said. “It gets the highest ratings of anything on Mexican television.”

Because Rubio is Mexican, the Pavlik bout will draw bigger ratings than the Cotto bout, Arum said. Rubio’s following in Mexico isn’t as big as, say, Julio Cesar Chavez or Antonio Margarito, but a win over Pavlik would help shorten the gap.

Pavlik’s previous six bouts were on HBO or HBO pay-per-view, which generally replays its fights a week later. HBO typically takes a 10 percent cut for its pay-per-view broadcasts, but it will then pay $1 million or more for replay rights, which works out to a nice profit for companies such as Top Rank.

When that replay money didn’t materialize, Arum decided to broadcast this event independently. This is Top Rank’s first HD broadcast, which costs an extra $100,000 to produce.

Although putting the Pavlik fight in the Garden would have made life easier on Arum, he said it was never seriously discussed.

“Our goal for Kelly was always to make a title defense in Youngstown,” he said. “This was a good opportunity.”

Cotto has a big following with Puerto Rican fight fans, which is why Arum wanted that fight in New York. Irishman John Duddy, who is on the undercard, also has a New York following.

“If we sold out the Garden with Kelly fighting there, he [Pavlik] wouldn’t get any credit,” Arum said. “Putting it here, it rewards his fans who have traveled all over the place and it shows Kelly’s drawing power.”

Other than Pavlik’s fight, none of the six Youngstown undercard bouts will be on pay-per-view. The Chevy Centre card begins at 7:30 p.m. and will end by 10 p.m. in time for the Cotto bout.

Two local fighters are on the Chevy Centre undercard. Youngstown’s Jake Giuriceo will make his pro debut against Cleveland’s Michael Suarez (0-0) in the second bout, while Youngstown’s Mark Salser (8-0, 8 KOs) will fight Michigan’s Leroy Newton (6-13, 3 KOs) in the third bout.

scalzo@vindy.com