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Roc Nation Sports looking at Dec. 3 at Barclays Center for Cotto

Photo by: Chris Farina/Top Rank
Fighters Network
06
Sep

Roc Nation Sports exec Michael Yormark is working toward finalizing Miguel Cotto’s next fight and Dec. 3 at Barclays Center in Brooklyn is the preferred landing spot, he told RingTV.com on Tuesday.

Yormark declined to list who Cotto (40-5, 33 knockouts) may fight but ruled out Yuriorkis Gamboa, the former featherweight titleholder who was thought to be a candidate. “I’m not sure how that rumor got started,” Yormark said. “It will be a good opponent, it will be a good fight. I think it will be a good matchup for Miguel and for the opponent and it will be a good setup for what we have planned for 2017 because he’s going to keep going.”

Yormark’s twin brother is Barclays Center CEO Brett Yormark; Michael hopes to make an announcement within the next two weeks on the particulars. “We obviously have a good contact over there,” he said. “Miguel loves to fight in New York and what a great place to fight before the holidays in New York City in front of all his fans. We’re hopeful we can finalize something with the Barclays Center. I know my brother would love to have the fight. I’m pretty confident we can make it happen.”

Roc Nation’s boxing department recently lost David Itskowitch, who stepped down in July as COO after helping to launch the division in the summer of 2014. Yormark said a replacement had not yet been named.



“As we do with our entire company as we get to the end of the year, we always address our staffing levels across the company,” he remarked, speaking before a news conference for Andre Ward’s light heavyweight championship against Sergey Kovalev Nov. 19 on HBO PPV. “We’ll see if we need additional resources but right now we’re humming. Obviously we’ve got this big fight that we’re working on with Main Events and hopefully another big fight in December (with Cotto) and again we haven’t missed a beat.”

Roc Nation made a big splash when it announced a new boxing division to partner with its other athletes, such as Kevin Durant and Robinson Cano. Jay Z’s firm quickly signed Ward and Cotto with an eye toward promoting big shows such as the one in November. Yormark spoke of the possibilities that could result from a Ward victory.

“A win for us obviously gives us the best fighter in the world,” Yormark said. “With that comes a lot of opportunities, with that comes lots of leverage and with that we can open lots of new doors, both inside and outside the ring, not only for Andre, quite frankly but for some of our other fighters as well. So it’s a big moment for us and it’s an important moment for Roc Nation and our boxing division.”

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