By David Finger
Undefeated WBO junior featherweight champion Isaac Dogboe recently announced that he was extending his deal with Top Rank and entered into a long-term deal with Top Rank Promotions. “I am delighted to announce that I have extended my co-promotional agreement,” Dogboe said in a post on Facebook on October 2nd. “I look forward to welcoming Bob Arum to our beautiful country, Ghana, next year. This only further strengthens our relationship and I am excited about making history together.”
Top Rank chairman Bob Arum was equally pleased with the latest development and even hinted that he might be hosting a world title fight featuring Dogboe in Ghana in 2019.
“We are very, very happy to announce we have signed your world champion, Isaac Dogboe, to a co-promotional agreement with Rising Star of Africa,” Arum said in a recorded video posted on Rising Star’s TV page. “This is a long-term agreement and together Paul Dogboe (trainer and father of Isaac Dogboe and head of Rising Star of Africa Promotions) and Mike Altamura (advisor to Dogboe) we will afford Isaac opportunities to win championships in multiple divisions.”
Arum then set the boxing world in West Africa on fire with his closing statement.
“By the way, I am looking forward to…come to Ghana and explore with all of you the possibility of having Isaac make a title defense in 2019 in Ghana.”
The prospect of Dogboe fighting in Ghana again also has Altamura excited.
“I’m super excited about the thought of a homecoming fight in 2019.” Altamura said. “The atmosphere for the Dogboe-Cesar Juarez (which took place in Accra earlier this year) fight was off the chain. I believe that it is very possible, we’ve been in deep discussions with Top Rank…targeting March-April of next year. I’m relatively confident, especially with Bob Arum’s support, that all of that’s going to come.”
Dogboe is tentatively slated to fight on the undercard of the Lomachenko-Pedraza fight in New York City on December 8th, although no opponent has been announced yet Altamura promised an announcement in the coming days.
“We’ve been in deep discussions with Top Rank about appearing on that show and it is all set in motion for Isaac to be the co-headline act,” Altamura added. “Right now we are just accessing our options looking at the highest available contender within the WBO and I am pretty confident that we will have a name and an opponent locked in three or four days.”