Just as everything seemed perfect and ready to go, the last seven days have been full of changes for the Golden Boy Promotions card “Toe to Toe” featuring former world champions Saul “Canelo” Alvarez and Alfredo “Perro” Angulo in a twelve round special attraction clash from the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada. The first fight that went south on the fight card was the WBC lightweight title fight between champion Omar “Panterita” Figueroa and Ricardo Alvarez. Figueroa of Corpus Christi, Texas, but training out of Indio, CA, with Joel Diaz announced late last week that he had hurt his left hand, a problem he has suffered in the past, and would not be able to defend his title.
Not to disappoint “Canelo” Golden Boy Promotions scrambled to find Ricardo a new opponent and found him quickly thereafter announcing fellow Mexican Sergio “Yeyo” Thompson of Acapulco, Guerrero, as the new opponent. Richard Schaefer, CEO of Golden Boy, did announce the new proposed bout will not be featured on the PPV telecast but on the Showtime Extreme broadcast. In its stead, the Jorge Linares vs Nihito Arakawa was promoted to the PPV portion of the night.
Earlier today it was announced that IBF super welterweight champion Carlos Molina was arrested on Tuesday afternoon in Las Vegas for a Wisconsin warrant from back in 2005 and 2007. In the oldest of the misdemeanors from ’05 was a charge of disorderly conduct from an alleged altercation. In 2007 Molina failed to register as a sex offender in Wisconsin, a felony, with a warrant issued six months later. According to some reports, Molina was charged with statuary rape when he was eighteen for being involved with a fifteen year old female. The encounter was consensual.
As of Thursday afternoon Molina still was in the Las Vegas lock up and despite Golden Boy announcing that the Molina vs Charlo fight would still go on, they also announced that the Alvarez vs Thompson would take its spot on the PPV.
The interesting part of that is that the Alvarez vs Thompson fight is being announced on some news outlets as a WBC lightweight title fight although Figueroa should still be considered the world champion. No news whether it is actually for the Silver belt.
Besides the main event, the only other fight that has stayed as an anchor on the card is the WBC super bantamweght tilt between champion Leo Santa Cruz and former super flyweight titlist CristianMijares. The twelve round scheduled bout will mark the second defense of the title Santa Cruz captured last summer with a spectacular stoppage of hard-nosed Mexican Victor Terrazas. In his first defense, Santa Cruz went the distance with Puerto Rican Cesar Seda. The thirty-two year old Mijares has captured the super flyweight title back in 2007 and defended it a number of times before jumping up to the 118-pound division and eventually to super bantamweight.
On Friday the official weigh in will be celebrated and there we will truly see who will step in the ring and go “Toe to Toe”.
