Will it be PPV in January or Jermain Taylor before Christmas for Mora?

Over the weekend Boxingtalk.com spoke with Jeff Wald, executive producer of The Contender. Needless to say Wald was pleased with the Alfonso Gomez and Sergio Mora's victories on ESPN Friday Night Fights. "Gomez's ring entrance was electirc, the crowd was going crazy because they recognize this kid is a star. And then his peformance in the ring, what can I say? He showed why he's one of the best young fighters in the game today."

It was hard to soak up the pre-fight hype surrounding the Mora-Regan main event from Boxingtalk headquarters in the Bronx, but after speaking with Wald it became clear that Don Chargin, Regan's promoter believed his six-foot four inch middleweight would be too much for Mora to deal with, so much so that he was boasting predictions of knockout to anyone who would listen. "Don Chargin has been in boxing for a long time and he thought his guy was going to ruin Mora, he really thought they set us up for Sergio's downfall but we made the fight because we know Sergio is one of the smartest fighters in boxing and it showed during his performance. Everyone was asking us, why would we put him in with such a tall fighter, a lot of people thought it didn't make sense, but Sergio took his height away and showed why he's on the verge of taking his career to another level. He's continually working in the gym, he's still eager to learn and he wants to get better everyday. What more can you ask for from a fighter?"


According to Wald tickets for the September 26 Contender Season 2 finale have been flying and he's expecting "17,000 people in the Staples Center for the finale. Compare that to the crowd that's going to show up for James Toney and Sam Peter this weekend and you'll see what we mean when we say the popularity of our kids is in another atmosphere," said Wald.

Regarding Mora's future plans, Wald hasn't ruled out a December 9 showdown with Jermain Taylor, but he's clearly leaning towards featuring Mora on a PPV telecast sometime in January. Wald is so confident in the popularity some of the stars have received as a result of the reality series that he honestly believes "one million buys" is not out of the question. Wald also mentioned the possibility of first matching Mora with Ike Quartey before ultimately moving on to Jermain Taylor, but stated he will allow nature to play its course before making a final announcement on Mora's next bout.

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