Bob Arum is eager to see what his fighter, Xander Zayas, can do this Saturday when he fights Jorge Garcia for the vacant WBO Junior Middleweight title in Madison Square Garden in New York. Arum says Zayas (21-0, 13 COs) are ‘very marketable’ and a ‘great talent’.
(Credit: Mikey Williams/Top Rank)
Is Zayas ready for Garcia?
“He’s a tremendous kid. Very articulated and bilingual. So he is very marketable,‘ said Bob Arum said Fighting typeTalk about Xander Zayas. “That doesn’t mean he’s going to be a big fighter. He worked hard on it, and he proved that he had great talent in the ring. ‘
Zayas has not proven to be a ‘great talent in the ring’. This is the whole problem. With the opposition that the top rank in the ring has thrown, Zayas proved nothing.
Boxing’s next Puerto Rican champion?
“Now, he’s fighting for a world title. My hope is that he will be crowned another Puerto Rican World Champion on Saturday night, ‘says Arum about Xander.
The opposition that Zayas has been fighting so far was not good enough to predict a favorable result for him against Jorge Garcia. We know that Zayas is good enough to beat fewer fighters like Damian Sosa, Slava Spomer and Patrick Teixeira.
“I watched the fight, Tszyu and Fundora,” Arum said when asked about the possibility that Zayas was fighting the WBC Junior Middleweight Champion Fundora in a unification competition as he won the WBO title on Saturday night. “Or Tszyu lost something and was not at his game, or Fundora became Superman.”
It was a combination of things that led Tszyu to lose a second time against Fundora. This is not Arum’s concern now. He must keep Zayas away from Fundora because he would probably do the same as he did to Tszyu.
Janibek Matchup for Zayas?
“Let’s win this battle first,” says Arum about Xander’s fight against Garcia. ‘There are a number of possibilities (for Zayas). I don’t want to cry out specifically, but there are many junior middle weights. We have a middleweight champion with which we can match him, which is January. There are a lot of guys he can fight with. ‘
It would be a bad idea to fit Zayas against IBF and WBO mid -weight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly. No matter how good Xander looks like Saturday night, it would be a foolish idea to put him against January. Zayas is not the type of talent. He is a finesse fighter of the Shakur form.
It is a disaster to fit him against a Power Puncher like Janibek or Bakhram Murtazaliev. He was able to move in on Saturday and go up against Jorge Garcia. If this happens, the top rank has been wasting for the past six years to try to develop him. If they had collected the training wheels earlier, they would have discovered whether it was worth keeping him in the stable.
“The most important battle is the man he fights on Saturday, who is Garcia, that he should beat first,” Arum said.
It can go very badly for Zayas on Saturday, while being blown out by Garcia. It must be worried arum because he does not know how well Xander will do. He has so far combined against such a poor opposition that it is completely impossible to predict a result in this battle.
Last updated on 07/24/2025
