NBC, manager Al Haymon start new boxing series

NBC and powerful boxing manager Al Haymon unveiled details Wednesday of a new prime-time television show, “Premier Boxing Champions,” with fight cards set for March 7 and April 11.

The March 7 bouts at MGM Grand in Las Vegas will include a welterweight match between unbeaten Keith Thurman (24-0, 21 knockouts) and Robert Guerrero (32-2-1, 18 KOs), a former lightweight and super-featherweight world champion from Gilroy who lost to Floyd Mayweather Jr. in 2013.

Guerrero last fought in June and was left with a swollen eye after engaging in a toe-to-toe battle at StubHub Center in Carson against Japan’s Yoshihiro Kamegai -- an outcome that doesn’t bode well with the meeting against power-punching Thurman looming.

Also on March 7, former junior-welterweight champion Adrien Broner will fight Covina’s John Molina in a 140-pound bout.

NBC’s Al Michaels, who called the famed Marvin Hagler-Thomas Hearns bout in 1985 and also worked boxing broadcasts on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports,” will call the fights along with boxing legend Sugar Ray Leonard, NBC announced.

The April 11 bout will be a World Boxing Council/World Boxing Assn./International Boxing Federation junior-welterweight title defense by world champion Garcia (29-0) against former champion Lamont Peterson (33-2-1, 17 KOs).

The April 11 date is expected to be fought in New York.

The NBC deal is a powerful stroke by Haymon, best known as unbeaten Mayweather’s manager.

Recently, he has noticeably fortified his stable of fighters, adding Guerrero, Southland product and former three-division world champion Abner Mares, Molina and Riverside’s Josesito Lopez to a strong base that also includes Garcia, former welterweight champion Marcos Maidana and Los Angeles’ super-bantamweight world champion Leo Santa Cruz.

On Friday, a settlement was reached in a lawsuit filed by Los Angeles-based Golden Boy Promotions against the company’s former CEO Richard Schaefer.

The deal separated several Haymon fighters, including Mares and Maidana, from Golden Boy.

In the NBC announcement, the Haymon deal was described as a multiyear agreement that promised 20 live boxing shows this year, with some of the cards to be broadcast on cable’s NBC Sports Network.