Jerry Jones has a site deal in place for a Mikey Garcia-Errol Spence Jr. March 16 super-fight
Jerry Jones’ AT&T Stadium has finalized a site deal with Al Haymon’s Premier Boxing Champions for a possible March 16 welterweight-title fight between unbeaten lightweight champion Mikey Garcia of Riverside and Texas’ unbeaten welterweight champion Errol Spence, the Los Angeles Times has learned.
Haymon still needs to get both fighters to sign to fight at the Dallas Cowboys’ massive home in Arlington, Texas, but four-division champion Garcia (39-0, 30 knockouts) and International Boxing Federation champion Spence (24-0, 21 KOs) have each maintained strong interest in participating in such a bout.
Garcia, 30, drew a strong crowd — that included a ringside-watching Spence at ringside — of 12,560 at Staples Center in July when Garcia knocked down fellow champion Robert Easter Jr. once en route to a unanimous-decision victory.
Spence’s most recent bout sold out Jones’ practice/training facility for his Cowboys, the Star, in Frisco, Texas.
While Spence, 28, said he believed a Garcia bout was possible by the end of the year, Garcia had to decide whether to take on a mandatory bout with IBF contender Richard Commey, a bout he rejected last month. Television budget money renews with the turn of the calendar too.
“The Cowboys’ side is done,” said an official connected to the talks but unauthorized by the Cowboys to speak publicly on the matter. “Now they just have to deliver the fight.”
That’s not seen as a major problem now, given the fact that Haymon has close a relationship with both fighters.
Garcia defended his super-featherweight belt in Texas twice in 2013, in Dallas and Corpus Christi, then returned in March in San Antonio to defeat Sergey Lipinets at junior-welterweight and win a belt in a fourth division.
Now, he chases Spence in a fifth weight class against a former U.S. Olympian and disabling body puncher coming off a first-round knockout victory.
Both men are ranked in the top five of most pound-for-pound rankings of boxers.
Garcia has done “pretty well in [Texas]. He’s doing more every fight,” said the official.
Twitter: @latimespugmire
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