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Arum not ultimate fight fan By Doug Krikorian, Sports columnist 06-02-07
Bob Arum is on the line from Las Vegas, and the venerable promoter of boxing matches actually acknowledges the rise of a competing mixed martial arts organization called Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) that has gained widespread popularity among the 18 to 34 set.
"Their presentation and promotion is very good and they spend millions and millions of dollars on advertising," he says.
And then comes the inevitable punch line from Arum.
"And their product stinks," he says. "It's just awful. Most of their participants come from wrestling, or karate backgrounds, and are just terrible boxers.
"The guys who promote this stuff are able to spend so much money on advertising because they don't pay their fighters anything. Here they had a big pay-per-view show last week in which they had more than a million buys and took in around 20 million dollars. And I doubt they spent more than a million dollars on all the participants on the program.
"They have a complete monopoly, and have choked off all the competition, and their fighters have to take what they give them. In boxing, we have a totally different model, different pay scale. We give 90 percent of the money from a promotion to the fighters, while those in the other sport get about 10 percent. The promoters keep all the money for themselves."
Bob Arum didn't mention names, but, obviously, he was referring to Dana White, the UFC president who was heavily involved in the recent purchase of his company's major rival, PRIDE, for $70 million.
White has been widely quoted as saying that boxing is nearing its extinction, and that his sport is succeeding it in the public's consciousness.
Naturally, Arum disagrees, but does concede that boxing could use a makeover.
"What's killing boxing are the so-called businessmen fighters who leave the ring looking the same way as they did when they entered it," says Arum. "Just look at the recent Floyd Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya fight.
"All that publicity about how their fight was going to save boxing, and what happened? They didn't fight. They pranced around the ring for 12 rounds not taking any chances. That wasn't a fight. That was a ballet.
"Boxing needs fighters who fight, not guys like Mayweather and De La Hoya and Winky Wright who are more concerned about pay days and avoiding punches."
Of course, it must be pointed out that Bob Arum might be expressing a slightly different view of Messrs. Mayweather and De La Hoya had both not departed his Top Rank firm in recent years, thereby cutting him out of their lucrative showdown that generated immense pay per view profits.
But the Mayweather-De La Hoya fight was a tame affair that didn't exactly inspire the passions of those who observed it.
"What you need to bring fans back to boxing are fighters with a search-and- destroy attitude, fighters like Miguel Cotto and and Kelly Pavlik," says Arum, both of whom, by the sheerest coincidence, fight for Arum.
In fact, Cotto will be defending his WBA welterweight title next Saturday against Zab Judah at Madison Square Garden before an expected sellout crowd, while Pavlik is a 6-2 undefeated (31-0, 28 KOs) Youngstown, Ohio, native who Arum would like to match against middleweight champion Jermain Taylor.
Bob Arum admits that the UFC has staged its shows in a far more entertaining manner than boxing.
"Our presentation has sucked," he says. "For 30 years now, we've become like a studio sport because of the insistence of the TV networks like HBO and Showtime and ESPN not to play loud music between rounds because it would interfere with the priceless words being uttered by their announcers.
"Can you imagine Notre Dame banning its band from playing its fight song because it was interfering with the radio and TV announcers at its home games?
"Well, at the Manny Pacquiao fight in April in San Antonio against Jorge Solis we did all the pyrotechnics and played continuous music and the energy you could feel from the crowd was palpable.
"I spoke to Ross Greenburg (HBO president) about us going with loud music between rounds at the Cotto- Judah fight, and he was amenable to it. And we're also not going to have 20-minute waits between bouts that so often suck the energy out of a crowd. We're going to have four preliminary fights, one after another.
"It's going to be wild at the Garden. There will be pyrotechnics and hip-hop music being played as well as salsa music. It'll give a more dynamic aura to the atmosphere."
Bob Arum sniffs when you ask him how a world class boxer would fare against a UFC champion.
"You gotta be kidding me!" he says. "We'd fight them on land, we'd fight them on the sea, we'd fight them in the air, we'd fight them anyplace. They use four-ounce gloves. Can you imagine what would happen if you allow our top guys to use four-ounce gloves? It would be a massacre.
"Their guys can't take a punch. They're wrestlers not accustomed to getting hit on the chin. Look what happened last week when their so-called champion (Chuck Liddell) got knocked out in less than a round. And that by a guy who can't even box well.
"There is no doubt we have a better product. We just have to present it better. And our top fighters have to be committed to fighting in an entertaining manner."
And then Bob Arum, ever the promoter, went on and on and on about the virtues of Miguel Cotto, and how all his fights turn into brawls and, please boxing fans, he added, don't forget to pay the $44.95 tab to watch Cotto display his machismo against Zab Judah next Saturday night.
Bob Arum is on the line from Las Vegas, and the venerable promoter of boxing matches actually acknowledges the rise of a competing mixed martial arts organization called Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) that has gained widespread popularity among the 18 to 34 set.
"Their presentation and promotion is very good and they spend millions and millions of dollars on advertising," he says.
And then comes the inevitable punch line from Arum.
"And their product stinks," he says. "It's just awful. Most of their participants come from wrestling, or karate backgrounds, and are just terrible boxers.
"The guys who promote this stuff are able to spend so much money on advertising because they don't pay their fighters anything. Here they had a big pay-per-view show last week in which they had more than a million buys and took in around 20 million dollars. And I doubt they spent more than a million dollars on all the participants on the program.
"They have a complete monopoly, and have choked off all the competition, and their fighters have to take what they give them. In boxing, we have a totally different model, different pay scale. We give 90 percent of the money from a promotion to the fighters, while those in the other sport get about 10 percent. The promoters keep all the money for themselves."
Bob Arum didn't mention names, but, obviously, he was referring to Dana White, the UFC president who was heavily involved in the recent purchase of his company's major rival, PRIDE, for $70 million.
White has been widely quoted as saying that boxing is nearing its extinction, and that his sport is succeeding it in the public's consciousness.
Naturally, Arum disagrees, but does concede that boxing could use a makeover.
"What's killing boxing are the so-called businessmen fighters who leave the ring looking the same way as they did when they entered it," says Arum. "Just look at the recent Floyd Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya fight.
"All that publicity about how their fight was going to save boxing, and what happened? They didn't fight. They pranced around the ring for 12 rounds not taking any chances. That wasn't a fight. That was a ballet.
"Boxing needs fighters who fight, not guys like Mayweather and De La Hoya and Winky Wright who are more concerned about pay days and avoiding punches."
Of course, it must be pointed out that Bob Arum might be expressing a slightly different view of Messrs. Mayweather and De La Hoya had both not departed his Top Rank firm in recent years, thereby cutting him out of their lucrative showdown that generated immense pay per view profits.
But the Mayweather-De La Hoya fight was a tame affair that didn't exactly inspire the passions of those who observed it.
"What you need to bring fans back to boxing are fighters with a search-and- destroy attitude, fighters like Miguel Cotto and and Kelly Pavlik," says Arum, both of whom, by the sheerest coincidence, fight for Arum.
In fact, Cotto will be defending his WBA welterweight title next Saturday against Zab Judah at Madison Square Garden before an expected sellout crowd, while Pavlik is a 6-2 undefeated (31-0, 28 KOs) Youngstown, Ohio, native who Arum would like to match against middleweight champion Jermain Taylor.
Bob Arum admits that the UFC has staged its shows in a far more entertaining manner than boxing.
"Our presentation has sucked," he says. "For 30 years now, we've become like a studio sport because of the insistence of the TV networks like HBO and Showtime and ESPN not to play loud music between rounds because it would interfere with the priceless words being uttered by their announcers.
"Can you imagine Notre Dame banning its band from playing its fight song because it was interfering with the radio and TV announcers at its home games?
"Well, at the Manny Pacquiao fight in April in San Antonio against Jorge Solis we did all the pyrotechnics and played continuous music and the energy you could feel from the crowd was palpable.
"I spoke to Ross Greenburg (HBO president) about us going with loud music between rounds at the Cotto- Judah fight, and he was amenable to it. And we're also not going to have 20-minute waits between bouts that so often suck the energy out of a crowd. We're going to have four preliminary fights, one after another.
"It's going to be wild at the Garden. There will be pyrotechnics and hip-hop music being played as well as salsa music. It'll give a more dynamic aura to the atmosphere."
Bob Arum sniffs when you ask him how a world class boxer would fare against a UFC champion.
"You gotta be kidding me!" he says. "We'd fight them on land, we'd fight them on the sea, we'd fight them in the air, we'd fight them anyplace. They use four-ounce gloves. Can you imagine what would happen if you allow our top guys to use four-ounce gloves? It would be a massacre.
"Their guys can't take a punch. They're wrestlers not accustomed to getting hit on the chin. Look what happened last week when their so-called champion (Chuck Liddell) got knocked out in less than a round. And that by a guy who can't even box well.
"There is no doubt we have a better product. We just have to present it better. And our top fighters have to be committed to fighting in an entertaining manner."
And then Bob Arum, ever the promoter, went on and on and on about the virtues of Miguel Cotto, and how all his fights turn into brawls and, please boxing fans, he added, don't forget to pay the $44.95 tab to watch Cotto display his machismo against Zab Judah next Saturday night.
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