THIS is your first fight under Top Rank, who also promote potential lightweight rivals Teofimo Lopez, Shakur Stevenson and Vasyl Lomachenko, but won’t necessarily favour you, geographically…
It was just the right move, to have not only have one powerhouse but two powerhouses [the second is Lou DiBella] behind me in this second coming of my career. Look at the lightweight division and the 140lbs division. Top Rank has the majority of the big, big names. It just made a lot of sense. I’m here for the biggest and best fights. I stay as a pay-per-view fighter in Australia [and] I get to headline here in America. I’m excited to be back in the US – this is where I started; where I built my name.
There’s plans for the big fights – the mega fights, the stadium fights [in Australia]. There’s a few names that make a lot of sense. I know I can do my half of the stadium, but you need the right dance partner; a big name. We wanted to showcase as a big attraction in America. Forget the city, forget where the fight is. Oklahoma – I’m looking forward to it. This was [ESPN’s] next stop. It worked with my timing of the fight. It was originally supposed to be in Vegas, but that was the ESPN+ option. I wanted the general person to be able to tune in and say,
