The Super Jam 3 forces Don King to Postpone Cory Spinks vs Cornelius Bundrage
If you were looking forward to Cory Spinks’ IBF junior middleweight title defense against Cornelius Bundrage on June 12 in St. Louis, Missouri, it appears you might have to wait a little longer. Promoter Don King has announced that “a number of conflicting interests” has forced him to postpone the fight and move it to a card at a later date. Reading between the lines, it’s most likely that ticket sales were very slow for the scheduled bout at the Chaifetz Arena, causing King to pull the plug on the fight.
While not directly addressing ticket sales, King said that there were several “conflicting interests” that led to the decision to call off the fight 10 days before it was to take place. One of them involved a local radio station, St. Louis’ Hot 104.1 FM, which made a decision to hold a large concert on the same date as the fight. The Super Jam 3 at the Verizon Wireless Ampitheater is headlined by some of the largest names in hip-hop and urban music, including Super Jam, Drake, Gucci Mane, Young Money and Waka Flocka Flame - a potential problem for King.
Hot 104.1 FM has helped King promote fights in St. Louis in the past, he said, and he felt that with the station committed to promoting another event on the same day, it would be very difficult to gain traction for the fight - especially since the core audience for boxing in the area is the same audience who would be attending the concert. King said that Spinks had received many messages from fans expressing displeasure that they could not attend both the fight and the concert.
The inability to bring in ticket sales is especially disappointing since the fight involves Spinks, the son of a former championship boxer and a St. Louis native. His opponent Bundrage is the mandatory opponent for the championship belt and someone with name value - he was a former, popular contestant on the reality TV series “The Contender.”
This marks the second time that the bout between Spinks and Bundrage has been postponed. It was originally scheduled for March 26 as part of ESPN’s “Friday Night Fights” series as the undercard to a cruiserweight fight between Steve Cunningham and Matt Godfrey. However, the main event was called off at the last minute because of contractual issues between King and ESPN, leading to the entire card being scrapped.
Another issue that was hampering ticket sales was that King had recently announced another card of championship boxing in St. Louis for later this summer. Scheduled for August 7, the card is topped by St. Louis native Devon Alexander defending his WBC and IBF junior welterweight title against former champion Andreas Kotelnik, with a second fight featuring light heavyweight champion Tavoris Cloud taking on former titlist Glen Johnson headlining the undercard. It’s likely that King will move the Spinks vs. Bundrage fight to that card, creating three different world title fights and a very attractive card for fight fans in the area.
Unfortunately, it looks like you will still need to be in the area in order to watch the Spinks vs. Bundrage fight. The bout was originally scheduled to be not televised, another factor that was making it difficult to sell tickets. While the August 7 card is planned for broadcast on HBO, the network only has space for two bouts - likely the Alexander vs. Kotelnik and Cloud vs. Johnson bouts. It appears that for the time being, even if the fight between Spinks and Bundrage does take place, it will have the dubious distinction of being a dark fight that is not on TV.
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