Lenk eager to resume promising fight career

Anthony Lenk hasn't had a fight since April and the time off is killing him.

Lenk, a 21-year-old junior welterweight from Las Vegas, broke his right hand April 17 during his first pro defeat, a six-round battle against Jesse Vargas in Primm. The southpaw had surgery and is back in training at Johnny Tocco's for a possible return to the ring next month at the Palms.

"It was hard to be patient," said Lenk, 5-1 with three knockouts. "I completely listened to the doctors and they said I couldn't do anything. I couldn't even run, so I lost all my conditioning. It was like I was back to zero.

"But I'm excited to get back in the ring. I've never been away this long from boxing, so I'm ready to go."

Lenk was progressing well going into the Vargas bout, sparring nearly 100 rounds with Yuriorkis Gamboa during training. He had knocked out three of his previous four opponents. But he broke his right hand in the first round against Vargas, then hurt his left hand later in the fight. Somehow, he managed to break Vargas' nose, but he still lost a unanimous decision.

"It was frustrating not to be able to throw a punch," he said. "I really couldn't use either hand at one point."

Now that he's healthy, Lenk hopes to make up for lost time. If he gets on the Oct. 17 Palms card and all goes well, he hopes to fight again at the Palms on a Nov. 6 card.

• PAY-PER-VIEW BONANZA -- The pay-per-view numbers are in from the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Juan Manuel Marquez fight, and Richard Schaefer was right.

The chief executive officer for Golden Boy predicted the Sept. 19 fight would do 1 million buys and that's what HBO announced Friday. The tally includes 525,000 buys via cable, and the $52 million TV gate made it boxing's highest-grossing PPV event of 2009.

It's only the fifth time a nonheavyweight fight reached 1 million PPV purchases.

"I am truly humbled by the numbers, and I appreciate all of the sports fans who either came to the fight or bought it on pay per view," Mayweather said in a statement.

Mayweather is part of the record for boxing PPV when his May 2007 fight against Oscar De La Hoya produced 2.4 million buys.

• MARTIROSYAN WILL WAIT -- Super welterweight Vanes Martirosyan has decided to not fight on Top Rank's card on Oct. 19 in New York, but will fight on Dec. 19 instead.

Martirosyan is being trained by Freddie Roach and wants him in his corner, but Roach won't be available for the Oct. 19 card because he is preparing Manny Pacquiao for his Nov. 14 fight against Miguel Cotto at the MGM Grand.

Pawel Wolak replaced Martirosyan on the card, which is headlined by Juan Manuel Lopez, who defends his WBO junior featherweight title against Rogers Mtagwa.

Contact reporter Steve Carp at scarp@ reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2913.