April 21, 2004
Klitschkos enter promotional arena!
K2 Promotions, the promotional company of the Klitschko brothers, is set to present its first fight card on Saturday at the STAPLES Center in Los Angeles. The main event features Vitali Klitschko vs Corrie Sanders for the WBC heavyweight title. Although there have been three fights billed as world heavyweight titles fights in the last two weeks, most pundits view Saturday's clash as the battle for the true heavyweight title. After a long drought, this will be the second heavyweight championship fight in Los Angeles in the last ten months and all indications are Angelinos are again going to show their support.
Fightnews spoke with K2 managing director Tom Loeffler about Saturday night's card.
How are the ticket sales going?
Tickets sales are going good. All the high end floor seats are sold out, now we’re working on just filling up the top level of the arena.
There still some low priced tickets remaining?
Yeah, in the L.A. market historically there’s a large ticket buying trend the last couple of weeks, so we’re looking to move those here before the fight.
Do you think the other three heavyweight title fights we’ve had in the last two weeks have diluted anything for this fight?
I don’t know about the two fights last weekend. I think that the fact that Wladamir lost didn’t help because the promotion was based around both brothers making history and winning world titles at the same time, but it’s really focused now on Vitali, who’s the premier heavyweight in the division fighting Corrie Sanders who’s a very dangerous heavyweight ranked number two for the linear title. The winner of this fight will establish himself as the best heavyweight. This is the real heavyweight title.
What are the plans for K2? Is this going to be an ongoing promotional entity or is this just for this fight?
It will be an ongoing entity. It just depends on what opportunities come up. A lot depends on what happens on Saturday night and if Vitali is successful then you’ll see more promotions that are happening in the future.
Are the Klitchko’s sort of doing what Oscar Del La Hoya’s doing, fighting and promoting at the same time? Are they looking to build a company like that?
Yeah, well, a lot of it depends again on what happens on Saturday, but they’ve seen what Oscar’s done, they’ve seen what Lenox Lewis has done, what Roy Jones has done, Naseem Hamed did with the Prince Promotions. They wanted to form their own corporation and try to get a little bit more control over the local promotion in the states.
With Sanders having beaten Vitali’s brother, is this fight personal?
There’s a lot of story lines behind this fight. With Corrie Sanders beating Wladimir last year, there’s certainly a lot of emotion on Vitali’s side in terms of wanting avenge his brother's loss. [Also] it’s really been his dream to win the WBC Title, so he looks at this as to really being able to fulfill both dreams at the same time. Corrie Sanders can establish himself as the first person to have beaten both of the Klitchko brothers, so there’s a lot of intrigue here in this fight and I think it’s safe to say that there’s no love lost between them. They’re great sportsmen, they’re great competitors, but I think when it comes down to Saturday night, it’s going to come down to business where both men are going to fight with everything they have to win the title.
What’s going to be the co-feature now?
Unfortunately Vernon Forrest got hurt. The co-feature now is the great fighter here out of Los Angeles, the former Olympian, Jose Navarro. Very popular here with the Los Angeles fans and he’s been added as the co-feature to the fight.
HBO’s going to show just the main event now, correct?
When Vernon Forrest got hurt, HBO decided just to show the one fight.
What happened to Lucia Riker?
Lucia Riker, unfortunately I was joking with Emanuel Steward about both of the fighters he trained getting injured. She actually got injured while Emanuel was with Wladimir. She was sparring and she tore a rib cartilage that prevents her from fighting, but now we have Sumya Anani taking her place to fight Lisa Holewyne, which is going to be a terrific fight. Lisa Holewyne is a world champion and Sumya has established herself as one of the best female fighters in the world.
Does K2 have any other fighters signed or are they looking to sign anybody else?
No, K2 right now is focusing on the Klitschko brothers and again a lot will depend on what happens on Saturday .
Is this the first promotion of the K2 Company?
This is the first promotion for K2 Promotions, yes.
It’s not bad doing a world heavyweight championship fight first time out of the gates.
No it’s not bad starting with the WBC Championship at the STAPLES Center, even though we have a lot of experienced people working at the company. Don Chargin is doing the matches. We have a great relationship with Golden Boy Promotions. They allowed us to use his services for the fight. Brener-Zwikel is doing the PR for the fight, they did the PR for the Lenox Lewis fight. Jim Hunter, who has done a lot of the Mike Tyson fights in the past, he’s the event coordinator. There’s a lot of quality people working at K2, so even if it’s the first promotion, it’s a great staff that I’m working with.
Good luck with it and thank you very much.
We appreciate all your support that you’ve given to the promotion on Fightnews.com, and we’re really looking forward to the turnout on Saturday night.
Here is the current lineup:
Vitali Klitschko 33-2 vs. Corrie Sanders 39-2 (WBC Hvy)
Jose Navarro 19-0 vs. Martin Armenta 10-5-3 (115)
Carlos Bojorquez 21-4-6 vs. Ronald Weaver 29-13 (154)
Ahmed Kaddour 16-0 vs. Juan Carlos Garcia 6-2 (154)
Taras Bidenko 9-1 vs. Agustin Corpus 10-13-3 (Hvy)
Sumya Anani 22-1-1 vs. Lisa Holewyne 21-11-1 (140)
Good seats, priced at $350, $250, $150, $100, $85 and $50,
Quelle: http://www.fightnews.com/freitag144.htm