As many of you know by now, WWE has been labeled an “essential business” by the state of Florida. Now, top boxing promoter Bob Arum is interested in using WWE’s Performance Center in Orlando, FL to put on fights. He claims he’ll be in touch with Vince McMahon and WWE shortly about the possibly of boxing fights taking place at the Performance Center. He told ESPN.com the following,
“It’s very, very interesting, and we’re going to be in touch with them. There’s a possibility to use their facility to maybe do events without a crowd.
We’re very close with Vince [McMahon] and the WWE. So let’s see, but we’re still not talking before June … But it all depends, the whole reopening of the country, the different states, it all comes down to the same thing — testing, adequate testing. You cannot open it and have athletes compete against each other with referees, the judges, with camera people, unless you can ensure that it’s safe, and the only way you can ensure that it’s safe is with testing. It comes down to testing.
Those are either going to have to wait till you have spectators, or if the fighters get antsy, they will have to deal with an adjustment in their purses because you will have cut off an important revenue source from the event. For example, [Tyson] Fury and [Deontay] Wilder, the gate was close to $17 million, and that’s from the public buying tickets to the fight. How do you replace that? Well, if you don’t replace it — then somebody has to eat that.”
