The ever-moving Teofimo Lopez-George Kambosos bout has its fifth date.
BoxingScene.com has confirmed that Triller Fight Club will televise Lopez-Kambosos as the main event of a pay-per-view show October 4 from Madison Square Garden’s Hulu Theater in New York. Triller previously rescheduled the Lopez-Kambosos card for October 5, a Tuesday night, but switched it again to a Monday night to avoid a potential conflict with a Yankees home playoff game that could be scheduled for October 5 in the nearby Bronx.
ESPN.com’s Mike Coppinger was the first to report the most recent Lopez-Kambosos date switch Tuesday afternoon through his Twitter account.
Hulu Theater can accommodate slightly more than 5,000 fans for boxing. Triller executives believe a Yankees home playoff game, potentially against their rival Red Sox, could cut into both ticket sales and pay-per-view buys.
The Yankees and Red Sox are on track to qualify for the upcoming American League playoffs, but they have yet to secure their berths. It is mathematically possible for the second-place Yankees or the third-place Red Sox to catch first-place Tampa Bay, which would eliminate the need for one of those two teams to participate in a single-elimination Wild Card game October 5.
Nevertheless, Lopez-Kambosos has switched dates for the fourth time since it initially was announced for June 5 at loanDepot Park, the home stadium of MLB’s Miami Marlins. It later moved to June 19 at loanDepot Park, primarily to avoid it taking place the night before Showtime Pay-Per-View’s Floyd Mayweather-Logan Paul card June 6 at the Miami Dolphins’ Hard Rock Stadium in nearby Miami Gardens.
Lopez-Kambosos was postponed again June 15, the day Lopez tested positive for COVID-19.
Triller Fight Club announced June 15 that Lopez-Kambosos had been rescheduled for August 14. A new venue was not secured, however, and nothing more regarding rescheduling Lopez-Kambosos for August 14 was officially announced thereafter.
After an unsuccessful attempt to bring the bout to Kambosos’ home country of Australia in mid-October, Triller Fight Club struck a deal with Madison Square Garden executives to bring it to MSG’s smaller venue, downstairs from its much larger main arena.
Triller Fight Club caught much of the boxing world off guard when it won a purse bid February 25 and earned the right to promote the 12-round, 135-pound title bout between Las Vegas’ Lopez (16-0, 12 KOs) and Sydney’s Kambosos (19-0, 10 KOs), the mandatory challenger for Lopez’s IBF lightweight title. The company’s whopping winning bid was an astounding $6,018,000.
Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Boxing submitted the second-highest bid, barely half of what Triller surprisingly proposed ($3,506,000). Bob Arum’s Top Rank Inc., which promotes Lopez, offered the third-highest amount ($2,315,000).
By Keith Idec (BoxingScene)
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