The plan is for 10 events between June 9 and July 16
Boxers returning on Tuesday to Las Vegas for the first time since the coronavirus pandemic lockdown in mid-March, under the banner of Bob Arum’s Top Rank promotion, will live inside what the veteran promoter has called ‘The Bubble’ at a sealed-off environment within the MGM Casino resort on The Strip.
Top Rank are the first promotional company to put on a televised boxing card in the United States, with no audience inside the Grand Ballroom adjacent to the Conference Center at the MGM with twelve boxers each permitted two team members ringside, and within ‘The Bubble’.
All teams will be housed on one floor of the vast casino resort, sealed off to any other guests at the hotel, and will only use elevators with exclusive use for that one floor of the 30-floor hotel.
As for the testing procedure, agreed twelve days ago by the Nevada State Athletic Commission [NSAC], all boxers and their teams were tested for coronavirus – temperature tests, swab tests and anti-body tests – on arrival last Saturday and will go through the same procedure on Monday at the afternoon weigh-ins. Testing for coronavirus for each event will cost the promoter “in excess of $25,000”, according to the promoter.
The fighters are only permitted to leave their rooms for designated training sessions and must stay isolated for the rest of the time. Meals can be delivered to the room, and there is a food servicing hall in the convention center available to them. The usual protocols of masks and gloves and protective equipment will apply to all but the fighters inside the ring when the events take place. Two cutsmen have been pooled to serve all the fighters between rounds.
Arum says that a plan is in place to have 10 events between June 9 and July 16, all at the same venue, as boxing like other sports feels its way back under new protocols. “This is not an easy job. My people have been working on this for months, getting the protocols in place,” said Arum.
The first event will be headlined by undefeated American Shakur Stevenson who meets Felix Caraballo in a 10-round non-title bout at super featherweight. Stevenson, the WBO champion, is seen as a future opponent for Leeds’ world champion Josh Warrington. Mikaela Mayer , the female fighter and WBC-NABC champion at 130lbs, was to meet Helen Joseph, but the fight was scratched after Mayer tested positive, asymptomatically, for coronavirus after being tested at the weekend on arrival.
Arum, 88, has stressed that the staging of events is "a work in progress" and will continue to be so as the ten events unfold over the next few months. “We have never been through this experience before, so it will continue to be a work in progress”, he explained.
Would Arum, 88 years old, be at the event ? “Of course. I will be tested like everyone else, and I will be going. How can I put this event on ask other people to go there and then say I’m not going… ?” Arum told Telegraph Sport last week, having received the “go-ahead” from NSAC and his broadcast partners ESPN just under two weeks ago.
“Guys come into Vegas to get into ‘The Bubble’, which is a special floor at the MGM,” explained Arum in a media broadcast. “They have to be tested, then they’re in ‘The Bubble’. They got to be escorted to a place to shake out, to train, a place to eat. We have a special dining room set up in the convention center. All of this is something that none of us is used to. We’re not starting out with title fights, but we’re going to have them before long. By the third week we will start doing world title fights because there are other issues with the organisations which we’re working out. So it’s one step at a time.”
The commentators will voice the fights for television from remote locations and Top Rank will only have “about a dozen or so staff” on site, with skeleton television crews, officials and medical staff.
“This is a very, very large undertaking, but obviously it has to be done. We’ve got to get boxing started up. We’re probably going to be doing this for three months and hopefully by September we’re going to start getting back to doing events with spectators with a limited capacity” explained Arum. “That’s the second phase we’re working on. The third phase, hopefully by the end of the year, we’ll be doing events with virtually full capacity.”
The events on Tuesday June 9 and Thursday June 11 will be streamed on FITE TV in the UK.
This Article First Appeared On The Telegraph