By Jake Donovan

For the second year in a row, the greater New York City area will enjoy a boxing surge as spring meets summer time.

With the rescheduling of the welterweight title fight between Keith Thurman and Shawn Porter – previously set for March 12 but postponed to June 25 – came speculation of where the anticipated clash would land. Promoter Lou DiBella helped answer that question – even without saying a single word to anyone in the media – in placing a hold on the date at Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.

BoxingScene.com has since learned there exists the strong likelihood of event handlers soon wrapping up details to the rising boxing hotspot officially hosting the CBS-televised event.

RingTV.com reporter Mitch Abramson – a former contributor to BoxingScene.com but forever family – was the first to confirm such talks, revealing the breaking news through social media.

Once terms are officially reached, the night will give the NYC region three consecutive weekends of major boxing events. Already in the books is a planned June 11 show at Madison Square Garden Theatre in midtown Manhattan, featuring unbeaten Felix Verdejo of San Juan, Puerto Rico versus a yet-to-be-named opponent on the eve of the annual Puerto Rican Day parade in New York City.

Also in the works – but by no means a done deal - are plans for Miguel Cotto to return to Barclays Center on June 18. Opponents are still being discussed, but nothing is yet set in stone and it remains to be seen if Cotto and promoter Roc Nation Sports keep the date, or opt to wait out the results of Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez’ middleweight title defense versus Amir Khan. Whispers have circulated of Cotto longing for a rematch with Alvarez, who won their 155-pound cathchweight bout last November to claim the World middleweight championship.

Should the present schedule hold form, it will mirror a similar stretch that took place at the same time of the year in 2015. Barclays Center played host to back-to-back events – Khan’s 12-round win over Chris Algieri on Spike TV last May, followed by Cotto’s debut in the venue just eight days later, crushing Daniel Geale inside of four rounds live on HBO, setting up his aforementioned showdown with Alvarez last November in Las Vegas.

The pair of Barclays shows were followed up by Verdejo’s HBO-televised debut, taking place at Madison Square Garden in chief support to Nicholas Walters’ 12-round win over Miguel Marriaga. The show was also staged on the eve of the Puerto Rican Day parade, with Verdejo – who scored a one-sided 10-round win over Ivan Najera – rode atop the Top Rank float down 5th Avenue on the festive day.

The June 25 show will mark just the second appearance each for Thurman and Porter at Barclays Center, which is rapidly becoming one of the hottest boxing homes in the United States.

Thurman (26-0, 22KOs) played the Brooklyn joint in March ’13, scoring a unanimous decision win over Jan Zaveck. The night marked the first time the hard-hitting welterweight from Florida was forced to go 12 rounds, the HBO-televised win kicking off a memorable 2013 campaign that saw Showtime-televised thrilling knockout wins over Diego Chaves and Jesus Soto Karass.

A year after being forced to tread water in a pair of 2014 wins over Julio Diaz and Leonard Bundo, Thurman would become the face of adviser Al Haymon’s newly created Premier Boxing Champions series. He headlined the inaugural show, outpointing Robert Guerrero in the main event of their NBC primetime-televised title fight.

Four months later, Thurman’s shoulder was once again tapped to kick off another PBC series, this one landing in primetime on ESPN. In what served as his last ring appearance to date, Thurman managed a 7th round corner stoppage win over former welterweight titlist Luis Collazo.

From there came extensive talks for a showdown with Porter, who has been forced to sit on an NBC-televised win over Adrien Broner, which came on the eve of Father’s Day last June. It was the most notable win of Porter’s career, and perhaps his biggest since his lone Barclays showing, claiming a welterweight title in a Dec. ’13 unanimous decision win over Devon Alexander.

The compact boxer from Akron, Ohio – who now lives and trains in Las Vegas – made just one successful defense, battering former two-division titlist Paul Malignaggi in four rounds in April ’14. His next fight ended his title reign, dropping a close but clear 12-round decision to Kell Brook in Aug. ’14. Two fights have followed – a 5th round stoppage of Erick Bone on the first-ever installment of PBC on Spike TV last March, as well as the aforementioned Broner clash.

Talks dragged along for a showdown with Thurman, which at one point was rumored to headline the 2015 season finale of PBC on NBC last December in San Antonio, Texas. Several reasons were offered as to why it never materialized for that night, though none of them accepted by an increasingly frustrated boxing public whom collective grew skeptical over this fight ever happening at all.

Dates in February and early March were floated before the grand announcement made by Showtime Sports of its bold attempt to air boxing in primetime on its free-to-air parent company CBS. A date of March 12 was penciled in, a night that would have benefited from six hours of college basketball divisional semifinals and finals action preceding its annual March Madness tournament.

Alas, the bout was met with yet another delay after Thurman sustained injuries from an airbag deployment during a car crash in late February. The void was filled by Porter engaging in a live exhibition match with Lanardo Tyner at his gym in Las Vegas, streamed live on the PBC Facebook page. By that point, Showtime had announced its loaded spring/early summer schedule, including the new June 25 date for the highly anticipated welterweight showdown.

Assuming all goes as planned, the next announcement surrounding this fight will be that event handlers and Barclays Center have signed off to give the New York City plenty to talk about in a loaded boxing month of June. 

Jake Donovan is the managing editor of BoxingScene.com. Twitter: @JakeNDaBox