Arnold Barboza Jr. believes his new promoter is behind him entirely.
Barboza Jr., who signed with Golden Boy Promotions earlier this week sighed major frustration with his longtime promoter, Top Rank Inc., as he struggled to land a world title fight.
The junior welterweight who is 31-years-old, Barboza, returns on December 2nd as part of the Ryan Garcia versus Oscar Duarte card in Houston, Texas. For the past three years, Barboza Jr has lobbied for a shot at the junior welterweight world title, even being the mandatory opponent for Teofimo Lopez on multiple occasions. Yet, nothing would happen for Barboza Jr. The L.A.-based fighter out of South El Monte, California, believes that Golden Boy Promotions will back him and lead him to his dream of becoming a world champion.
“We are excited to have a promoter that is going to be behind us [one hundred] percent and looking forward to the big fights,” Barboza Jr told ProBox TV via text message.
"I just want to thank Top Rank for an amazing eight years and also want to thank ESPN for letting me share their amazing platform," said Barboza Jr to ProBox TV earlier this year after it was announced he had left Top Rank Inc. "Now it’s on to try and secure a big fight."
“So, Arnold Barbosa has been waiting for a big fight, and he's owed a big fight,” Barboza Jr.’s manager, Rick Mirigian said exclusively to ProBox TV News in May. “Arnold's contract [with Top Rank] is up soon in August, depending on what happens with the next opponent, that could be something that he explores but he wants a big fight. I'm hoping Top Rank delivers that. I know they tried with all fairness, lately. They’ve tried to make big fights for him. But there's no one that deserves a bigger fight more and, look, he is frustrated as he is right now. He's in a good situation. He'll be able to control his own destiny very soon.”
Given that both Oscar De La Hoya’s Golden Boy Promotions and Arnold Barboza Jr have strong ties to the Los Angeles community it seems as though Barboza Jr can be entrusted to fight on a card geared toward the L.A. audience. Former super middleweight world champion, Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez was promoted by Top Rank Inc for a good while before parting ways and has now become a main event fighter with Golden Boy Promotions over the past few years, and ‘Zurdo’ has heavy ties to the Los Angeles area training in that region.
One can’t help that the decision might also be prompted by the need to have a surplus of talent at the junior welterweight division as Golden Boy Promotions biggest star is Ryan Garcia, and Arnold Barboza Jr fighting in not just the same weight class as Garcia, but also being featured on that card could allude to a feature big fight.
