Defeating Teofimo Lopez in New York would take Josh Taylor “to a new level” in the eyes of the American boxing public, according to promotor Bob Arum.
Taylor, 32, defends his WBO light-welterweight world title against Brooklyn native Lopez, 25, at Madison Square Garden early on Sunday morning.
If Taylor wins, Arum says he will receive overdue exposure in the US.
“We’ll have maybe a couple of million households watching this fight,” the Scotsman’s promoter told BBC Scotland.
“There’s been a lot of great publicity so it definitely will elevate Josh to a new level.
“Once he became undisputed we ran into Covid so when he fought Jose Ramirez, which ordinarily would have been a fight that sold out an arena, we could only do it for a handful of people because of the restrictions. That sort of buried him a little bit. It affected our promotion of that fight.
“Josh was a victim of that because his fight with Jose Ramirez should have elevated him to a new level with boxing fans in the United States.”
Top Rank promotor Arum, 91, has been in the business for more than 50 years and has promoted fights involving the likes of Muhammed Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard.
He says Taylor against Lopez reminds him of fights from a bygone era.
“It’s like a throwback fight,” Arum said. “How can you not be excited?
“These are two evenly matched guys, two superb fighters. Two guys that talk a lot and have great pride in their ability.
“Some fights are very hard to sell – this is not one of them. We used to have these kind of fights regularly. Promotors would make really competitive, interesting fights. That doesn’t happen so much anymore, but this fight is a throwback fight.
“Who knows who’s going to win? The odds makers don’t even know. It’s a pick ’em fight.”
