Showtime officially announced Monday that Allan Green (29-1, 20 KOs) will replace Jermain Taylor in the Super Six middleweight tournament and will fight unbeaten Andre Ward (20-0) somewhere in the San Francisco Bay Area on April 24.
A Showtime official said Oakland's Oracle Arena is first choice for a venue to stage the bout.
Taylor dropped out of the tournament after suffering his fourth loss in five fights, a knockout by Super Six leader Arthur Abraham in October.
The Ward-Green fight will make for interesting unions involving Ward's promoter, Dan Goossen of the San Fernando Valley, who'll also stage a fight on HBO the same night: the heavyweight battle between Goossen-promoted Cris Arreola and his opponent, Tomasz Adamek, at Citizens Business Bank Arena in Ontario.
Ward-Green will be preceded on Showtime with tape-delayed action of another "Super Six" clash between Carl Froch and Mikkel Kessler in Denmark. Green is scheduled to fight Kessler next, likely in the fall.
-- The remaining Super Six bout between Andre Dirrell and Abraham has been moved to March 27 at a site yet to be announced after Dirrell suffered a back injury last week. The bout will not take place at Agua Caliente Casino Resort Spa due to a previously scheduled Doobie Brothers concert, a hotel spokeswoman announced Monday.
The bout will remain in the U.S., a Showtime official said.
Updated Super Six standings: Abraham 3, Ward 2, Froch 2, Kessler 0, Dirrell 0, Green 0.
-- A spokesman for fight promoter Top Rank said Antonio Margarito was pulled from a planned comeback bout March 13 on the undercard of the Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey fight at Dallas Cowboys Stadium to avoid a possible cancellation that might upset pay-per-view carriers and fans.
"He wasn't licensed [in Texas] yet, and we felt we had an obligation for the show to get them the complete undercard information as soon as possible," Top Rank spokesman Lee Samuels said. "We didn't want to announce [Margarito] as being on the card if there was a chance he wouldn't be there."
Texas was considering Margarito's license application when the fighter's promoter, Bob Arum, told The Times he was taking Tijuana's former world welterweight champion off the Pacquiao card and replacing that bout with a fight between Humberto Soto and David Diaz. Arum said he wanted Margarito to fight in May in Mexico.
But the Assn. of Boxing Commissions, which oversees and advises state commissions, told Texas authorities in a letter obtained by The Times that it didn't approve of licensing Margarito less than 13 months after California revoked his license for allegedly nearly using gloves loaded with plaster-containing inserts tucked inside his hand wraps last January.
Samuels said Top Rank had not consulted the ABC to see what time of suspension would be appropriate in the U.S.
"If all goes well in Mexico, he'll fight again here soon," Samuels said.
-- Pacquiao is enjoying the celebrity that accompanies being considered the world's top boxer. He's been visited by actor Robert Duvall at the Wild Card Gym in Hollywood, is scheduled to appear on ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Live" March 3, and is scheduled to be featured on CBS' "60 Minutes" and ABC'S "Good Morning America" later next month, according to publicist Fred Sternburg.
Source: latimesblogs.latimes.com
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