GARY ‘SPIKE’ O’SULLIVAN will be offered a comeback route by Oscar De La Hoya following Saturday night’s defeat to David Lemieux, with Golden Boy Promotions plotting a path towards fellow Irish middleweight Jason Quigley.
That is according to matchmaker Robert Diaz, who made the decision to put Spike in with Lemieux at the T-Mobile Arena on Saturday night.
Like many others, Diaz had expected the pair to serve up perhaps the fight of the night but it was all over inside a round when former world champion Lemieux landed the perfect left hook.
Defeat had seemed to cast doubt over Spike’s situation with Golden Boy, who signed him to an options package when they arranged his fight with Antoine Douglas in Montreal last year.
But Diaz insists they have no intentions of turning their back on the 34-year-old due to the nature of the loss.
“In most cases after an options package when you lose that breaks the contract,” Diaz said.
“But in this particular case he got caught by one punch – he didn’t get beaten up. Anybody can get caught, even the best fighter in the world can get caught.
“It’s actually worse if he got beaten up by for eight or nine rounds. If that was the case then maybe you say ‘you better retire brother’ but he got caught.
“All credit to David Lemieux but look, when I made the match I thought it would be eight rounds of Hell – bloody Hell – because of their styles – but it wasn’t to be. It’s boxing.
“But Gary is a great fighter and he’s a promoter’s dream, now it’s just a matter of us bringing him back.”
There is a chance that Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez, who narrowly outpointed Gennady Golovkin in the main event, could make the first defence of his new WBA and WBC titles in December.
If so, it is likely that O’Sullivan will be handed the chance to make his comeback, as he eyes a move down to the 11st light-middleweight division.
But now Diaz has revealed that there could be an all-Irish showdown waiting for him with another member of their stable should he continue to ply his trade as a fully-fledged middleweight.
Quigley had looked set to face Japanese star Ryota Murata for the WBA regular title this year but those plans fell apart and Golden Boy are still deciding on the next move.
And Diaz says there could be a roadmap for Quigley and Spike to meet back home in the ‘next couple of fights’.
He said: “This is not because of the outcome of tonight but when I signed Spike my first thought was ‘imagine Spike and Jason in Ireland’. It would be huge.
“Jason has his track and he’s on a road to fight for the world title. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen with our plan to fight Murata in October.
“But I think within the next couple of fights he could be challenging for a world title. He wins that, and Spike has a successful couple of fights back, that would be massive.”
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