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NEW YORK (AP)- The fertile boxing ground that produced dozens of world champions, from Mike Tyson to Riddick Bowe, will soon have a regular series of fights in a glimmering new arena.

Golden Boy Promotions has agreed to bring at least 12 shows each year to the New Jersey Nets’ new home in Brooklyn. The announcement was made Wednesday by Los Angeles-based Golden Boy and Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, which is behind the 22-acre Atlantic Yards development.

The centerpiece of it, the 18,000-seat Barclays Center, is scheduled to open in 2012.

“There’s a rich heritage in this marketplace,” Brett Yormark, president and chief executive of Brooklyn Sports & Entertainment, told The Associated Press. “We’re going to work very closely with Golden Boy, and we’re very excited about the possibilities.”

The agreement is exclusive in the fact that Golden Boy will not have similar agreements to develop other boxing franchises in the New York area, but Yormark said it will not prevent local promoters from working with Golden Boy to stage fights at the Barclays Center.

“The exclusive word is a little overstated,” Yormark said.

The strategic partnership is modeled after what Golden Boy has accomplished at the Nokia Theater in Los Angeles. Last year, the promoter began a series of monthly “Fight Night Club” cards that feature local talent and draw about 2,000 fans. Boxers who are successful both in the ring and in drawing crowds graduate to fighting in the 8,000-seat Nokia Theater.

Eventually, Golden Boy hopes that fighters who started out at the bottom will become big enough attractions to headline across the street at the 20,000-seat Staples Center.

“This is not just bringing once in a while a championship fight to New York,” Golden Boy chief executive Richard Schaefer said. “It is about developing a new fan audience for the sport of boxing, and doing a combination of different shows.”

Golden Boy has never been heavily invested in the East Coast, instead staging most of its fights in California and Las Vegas. But the idea was always in the back of Schaefer’s mind to make inroads in New York, where the Golden Gloves is an institution and arenas such as Madison Square Garden and Yankee Stadium have hosted some of the sport’s greatest moments.

“We like to take our time and make sure when we do make a decision, or team up with somebody, it will be someone who can be a strategic partner with us,” Schaefer said. “As we were looking at the landscape on the East Coast, we got together with Brett Yormark, and when we reached out to him — when you have these meetings, sometimes it clicks immediately.”

Schaefer and Yormark both said that they are not necessarily out to compete with the Garden, which has long dominated the New York boxing scene.

“For me, it’s about defining what the Barclays Center is about — it’s about volume and variety,” Yormark said. “And boxing will have a place in our programming schedule.”

The design of the Barclays Center works well for boxing, with numerous configurations to trim the seating capacity to about 4,000 for smaller shows.

The video board hanging over center court will allow for replays and the relatively low level of luxury suites are also a draw.

Perhaps the biggest thing going for the arena, though, is its location in Brooklyn.

The borough across the East River from Manhattan is home to the famed Gleason’s Gym, and has produced numerous world champions, from Tyson and Bowe to Zab Judah and Paulie Malignaggi

Ebbets Field hosted nearly 90 fight cards outdoors before it was torn down, and small shows are still held in the borough at places such as the Aviator Sports and Events Center.

“This is for the betterment of the sport,” Schaefer said, “and I think it’s fantastic when you have a venue and an ownership group that makes a commitment to the sport of boxing. We want to show the audience these fighters as they grow, and hopefully become world champions.”

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New York-based Lou DiBella (pictured above, at far right) promotes four of boxing’s better fighters in WBC welterweight (147 pounds) champ Andre Berto (next to DiBella), WBC middleweight (160 pounds) titlist Sergio Martinez, former two-time titlist and junior middleweight king (154 pounds) Kermit Cintron and former world champion and featherweight (126 pounds) contender Celestino Caballero.

The 26-year-old Berto is 26-0, with 20 knockouts, and the 35-year-old Martinez, 45-2-2, with 24 KOs. The 34-year-old, 5-foot-11, Caballero, whose size and skills can intimidate, is 34-2, with 23 KOs, and Cintron, 32-3-1, with 28 KOs.

DiBella addressed each of their careers with FanHouse over the course of a series of Q&As, starting with this one dealing with Berto.


FanHouse: Coming off of his eighth-round knockout victory over former world champion Carlos Quintana, whom would you like to see Andre Berto fight in the fall?

Lou DiBella: We don’t have total control of that. It’s also about who is going to fight him. I’d like to see him fight [WBA junior middleweight champion] Miguel Cotto. But [Top Rank Promotions CEO] Bob Arum appears to want to put his guys against his guys.

So I don’t know if that fight is possible. I’d also like to see him fight whom he wants to fight, but I don’t know that he’s going to be given that alternative.

Do you believe that either Manny Pacquaio or Floyd Mayweather

Mayweahter to be options for Andre Berto?

I don’t think that I see Pacquaio or Mayweather

Mayweahter are fighting an Andre Berto. It doesn’t appear that Antonio Margarito or Miguel Cotto are fighting Berto. And when you go down the 147-pound division, who else is a big name? What’s the big fight?

Who does Andre Berto want to fight?

I don’t know, you would have to ask him that question. I know that he wants a big fight, and I know that he wants the opportunity to have a defining fight.

Does he want WBO junior welterweight (147 pounds) Tim Bradley, who just rose to welterweight to beat Luis Carlos Abregu?

Tim Bradley and Andre Berto are friends. I don’t think that that would be his first choice. But is that an alternative? Certainly it’s an alternative.

Bradley showed [against Abregu] that he can beat pretty much all of the contenders at 147 and that he can function effectively as a welterweight. Does that make that fight a possibility? Of course.

But you would like to rise in weight to fight Miguel Cotto?

Of course we’d like to fight Cotto. My guy would have to come up a few pounds, but I think that Andre would love to fight Cotto. Berto would like to fight Cotto.

Would it benefit Andre to clean out the division, maybe to fight an undefeated Mike Jones, IBF champion Jan Zaveck or WBA champ Vyacheslav Senchenko, or would that take too long?

No. You can’t clean out the division really unless the fights are purchased by television. That’s another thing.

You don’t believe that HBO would buy a fight featuring a match against the other champions that unifies titles in the welterweight division?

HBO has had no interest in allowing Berto to unify the 147 pound title. No interest.

So what fights would they be willing to buy involving Andre, do you think?

For the most part all that they’ve said for recent months was Shane Mosley, who we were supposed to fight, as you know, on Jan. 30 originally.

But then, when we negotiated for a Shane Mosley fight, he insisted on getting 60 percent of the money, and we were unable to do a deal. And frankly, I think that HBO is upset that that deal didn’t happen.

So as of right now, I believe that they would remain committed to Berto, but we would have to work out a fight.

So you’re not sure what fight that HBO will take as of now and do not have one lined up for Berto?

I don’t really know at the moment. I mean, certainly, they would be excited if a Berto fight could be made. But I believe that they’re doubtful that that fight could happen.

Are you referring to a specific opponent when you say that?

Yes. Miguel Cotto.

So we are talking about a guy like Andre Berto, who just had a career-defining knockout of a guy who is the only man to beat Paul Williams, and that fight can’t be made?

I keep hearing that Berto has never fought a welterweight. What were Luis Collazo and Carlos Quintana? And with all due respect, Berto is younger than [WBO interim junior middleweight champ] Alfredo Angulo.

If you want to compare the quality of opposition, [former IBF junior welterweight champion] Juan Urango was a quality 140-pound champion when Andre beat him, and he was a big kid — actually he weighed more for the fight than Berto.

When you look at the quality of opposition of Andre Berto’s compared to Alfredo Angulo, then Andre Berto’s better. And Andre Berto is younger than Angulo. Andre takes a lot of heat for no reason, particularly when the best welterweights in the world don’t want to fight him.

I understand Mayweather

Mayweahter and Pacquaio doing that because their view is that Andre Berto doesn’t bring enough money to the table. And I accept that.

And unlike Dan Goossen with Paul Williams and the other fighters out there that keep screaming for Pacquaio and Mayweather

Mayweahter, I’m aware of the fact that those fights probably aren’t happening.

I mean, the notion that Andre Berto hasn’t fought anybody? I mean, he just knocked out Quintana, and Quintana beat Paul Williams. When did Quintana all of a sudden become some kind of a joke?

On a fair deal, get me one of those other guys. Get me Margarito, get me Cotto. We’re not scared of Tim Bradley. It’s not like there aren’t fights out there.

Or a 50-50 deal with Shane Mosley where you went to the site of the highest bidder? That deal would have been closed already. If they want to criticize the kid about his opposition, the kid would fight anybody.

I will remind you that before the earthquake happened in Haiti, that he was about to walk into the ring and to fight Shane Mosley before Mosley was tainted. The kid is willing to fight anybody.

Would a Paul Williams-Andre Berto fight be possible, with each being managed by Al Haymon?

A Paul Williams fight with Andre Berto doesn’t make any sense and part of the reason is that you have to look at reality. Paul Williams has fought at middleweight, and he’s an unusually tall guy who is not really a welterweight — I don’t care what they say.

And, Berto is an unusually short 147-pounder. So, I mean, you’re looking at a fight where one guy is going to tower over the other like a giant. Added to the fact that they share the same management, and it’s a fight that is definitely absurd to think about.

So what’s the way to describe Andre Berto’s position right now?

Andre Berto, in my mind, is one of the dominant young champions in boxing. And, because of his weight class, where the two, most dominant fighters are Pacquaio and Mayweather

Mayweahter, they aren’t likely to fight the majority of the welterweights and there is slim pickings.

I was a little shocked that there was so much pressure for us to fight Shane Mosley (pictured above, at left, with Berto) after he had lost 11-and-a-half of 12 rounds against Floyd Mayweather

Mayweahter. What does a fight with Shane Mosley prove for a young champion?

And also, what has Shane Mosley done recently to earn 60 percent of the money from somebody who holds a title?

Do you believe that the combination of Shane’s loss to Floyd and Andre’s victory over Carlos Quintana made Shane think twice about fighting Andre under the terms of a 50-50 split of the purse when he could take a perceptively easier fight with Sergio Mora for a favored 60-40 split?

You know, you could blame me for this, because I’m Berto’s promoter, and most of the matchmaking decisions are made by me. But if you want to blame me, I don’t think that Berto’s been match made inappropriately.

But I’m simply not going to sit there and not allow my fighter to earn money, and to not earn money myself. I’m not going to let Shane Mosley get 60 percent of the money and let Golden Boy Promotions control the promotion.

If Golden Boy didn’t have Shane Mosley, I wonder if that would have been pushed so hard. But I just think that it’s not only the 60-40 split, but it’s who is controlling the promotion. Berto would not have been promoted as the A-side of that fight — Mosley would have been.

That would have been dictated by the 60 percent that they were demanding.

Next: Check back for more from Lou DiBella.

Golden Boy Promotions has paid its $10,000 fine to the New York State Athletic Commission (NYSAC), which has lifted its 90-day suspension against the Los Angeles-based promotional company, FanHouse has learned.

“We actually paid the fine last week. We had reached the lawyers of the commission last week, but it had to be approved by the commission in a hearing. The fine was paid in the hope that the commission would approve it,” said Golden Boy Promotions attorney Judd Burstein.

“Everybody now knows what the truth is. There’s still been some damage done to us as a result of some of the reporting,” said Burstein. “But that’s something that we’re going to have to come to terms with.”

The suspension was the result of the promoter’s failure to turn in the boxer/promoter contracts disclosing the financial terms of its May 15 bout at Madison Square Garden for a pair of fighters, Victor Ortiz and Nate Campbell. The two fighters appeared on the undercard of a Madison Square Garden show whose main event featured WBA junior welterweight champ Amir Khan defeating challenger Paulie Malignaggi.

The NYSAC’s three-member committee voted unanimously to lift the suspension, a move that was accompanied by the $10,000 fine, according to commission spokesperson Gabe Roth.

“Golden Boy agreed to submit all of the proper paper work and all of the contracts for the May 15 event. And they agreed to a $10,000 fine. Basically, they didn’t submit everything that they needed to submit to the athletic commission for the fight,” said Roth on Tuesday.

“We realized it, they realized it, and we were able to come to an agreement as they submitted their paper work. They have a small fine, and we removed the suspension and we’ll go on with our lives,” said Roth. “From our end, they forgot to cross their T’s and dot their I’s and they realized it, we realized it, we came to an agreement, and we’re moving forward.”

Elie Seckbach, the Embedded Correspondent, brings his exclusive video reporting to FanHouse. Check back regularly for more videos.

On July 31, a rematch will take place between WBO and WBA lightweight (135 pounds) king Juan Manuel Marquez (50-5-1, 37 knockouts) and Juan Diaz (35-3, 17 KOs), who was knocked out in the ninth round of their February, 2009, Fight of The Year.

Their clash will take place at The Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas. Those at The Fortune Gym in Los Angeles expressed their opinions on Marquez-Diaz II, which is being promoted by Golden Boy Promotions.