Backlash? Anything but, According to Arum
By Steve Kim, MaxBoxing (Nov 10, 2011) Doghouse Boxing
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Photo: Bob Arum
Promoter Bob Arum isn't worried about how well his pay-per-view card this Saturday night at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas will perform compared to how the last two major HBO Pay-Per-View cards ended. First, you had the controversial ending between Floyd Mayweather and Victor Ortiz in September and then a month later, the aborted bout between Bernard Hopkins and Chad Dawson. Arum believes they will have little- if any- bearing on how well the third chapter between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez will be received by the public.
 
“Obviously, we would've wanted the fights that preceded Manny's fights to be barnburners but you can't always get what you want,” he told Maxboxing late last week. “Will it hurt our pay-per-view that the Mayweather fight had the bizarre ending, etc.? I don't know. It might but what can you do? As far as the other fight is concerned, nobody watched it anyways. No harm, no foul.”
 
There is a sense from the public that they were either shortchanged or ripped off with these events. It's one thing to watch a stinker on HBO or Showtime. It's a whole 'nother ballgame when you're forking out another 60-70 bones for it. But what took place in the previous months, according to Arum, will not affect them. “No, because we're trying to educate the public that in our events, we do an event. We do something that is really special. The one thing you can't control- no promoter can control- is how the fight actually turns out in the ring. That is impossible, so you've got to really have faith in the guys who are putting it together, doing it for you and hope that it turns out that way. But that being said, what we try to do at Top Rank is provide them with an evening of entertainment.”
 
Arum added, “That's why we spend fortunes on the entrances and all of that sorta stuff, so that even if the fight disappoints, such as the Mosley fight did, people can say, ‘Hey, we had an interesting experience,’ either at the arena or watching it on television.”
 
Yes, while Top Rank must be given credit for sprucing up their promotions, from their own signature lighting to bringing in big-name acts to perform during the main event entrances, what boxing fans pay for is ultimately a good scrap. Pacquiao-Shane Mosley had all the bells and whistles but was an utter flop as a prizefight.
 
On Saturday night, while they go on pay-per-view, the UFC makes its debut on Fox. And once again, the discussion has centered on whether the MMA is taking over the market share for combat sports from boxing as they have landed a terrestrial network deal while boxing exists mainly on cable platforms. But Arum doesn't seem all that concerned about this recent development. He believes that while it might have been a problem in 1993, this is now 2011.
 
“Look, to talk about the networks to what we see now is archaic type of thinking. Yeah, a major network like CBS or Fox, that's good but look at the networks or cable. They have as much of a reach if not more. They're really more targeted audience- like ESPN, like Spike, like Versus. When I was doing those things years ago, those kinda outlets didn't exist. Now they do. So I'm concerned about how we get our product out there to the biggest possible audience and if that's by way of cable networks or by way of terrestrial networks, I couldn't care less,” said Arum.
 
While many others give eulogies on the industry, Arum, at age 79, is more bullish than ever. He takes great umbrage at stories like the one recently penned by Tim Smith of the New York Daily News (nydailynews-article-1.968645) that paint a dire picture for boxing.
 
“What the hell are they talking about?!” bellowed Arum. “I've never done as well ever, like I'm doing now. I've never had the interest among people. Like they say, ‘Where are the Muhammad Alis now?’ That's like asking Bud Selig, ‘Where are the Joe DiMaggios?’ He left and he's gone away!”
 
He continued, “I can't understand it. I mean f**kin' Lou DiBella, he's a guy who has a fire in his house in the kitchen and yells out the window, ‘THE WORLDS ON FIRE!’ No, you schmuck, only your house!”
 
Unlike almost everyone else in the business (at least in the States), Top Rank doesn't just act as a mere television packager, meaning that their whole existence doesn't rely on the whims of the premium cable networks and their decision makers.
 
“If you run into a situation where somebody at a network for any reason, animosity, maybe they don't believe the way you believe, doesn't buy your product- that's not the be-all and end-all of the world. You find a way to show your product,” said Arum, who has ultimately cultivated relationships at both HBO and Showtime and burned bridges with both throughout the years. “So when Tim Smith quotes me as saying, ‘Well, if a network executive hates me, I'll take my money and put it on pay-per-view’- that's not a bad thing. That's a great thing.
 
“If I believe in my product, yeah, absolutely I'll invest in it.”
 
Arum has a point but then you would be in a lot better position to roll the dice if you had the “Pac-Man” at your side. Having Pacquiao is like taking the prettiest girl to the prom. Not only does it help the bottom line, it gives you clout and influence within the industry. But give Top Rank credit; there is no promotional company around today that invests as much as they do in their own product, from the development of prizefighters to being on the cutting edge of utilizing social media platforms on the internet. To Arum, modern technology is boxing's greatest asset, as his company is no longer solely reliant on traditional forms of media to spread the word. He states, “Listen, I'm an old f**k. I would've never imagined any of this. I never would've imagined the whole communication being so incredible. If I would have told this to people years ago during the Ali days and so forth, they would've taken me to a psychiatrist.”
 
He elaborated, “In years past, the method of communication was so archaic- I mean, for now, it would be considered archaic- that we couldn't reach the people the way we are now. We couldn't get all this excitement. Remember, we were dependent completely on the newspapers and the newspapers became archaic themselves. Now, we get more information out, more publicity out on the internet with all the bloggers. Now, we may not like everything they say; obviously, they're less responsible than the journalists because the barrier of entry is not very difficult- but it's great. We're getting stories out there. We're getting the talk out there. For me, it's something that is so amazing that I can hardly believe what I'm seeing. 
 
“So I'm not pessimistic. I am hugely optimistic.”
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Please be sure to check out our new video featuring our own Steve Kim and videographer Brian Harty’s excellent coverage of Manny Pacquiao in preparation for his Saturday night showdown against Juan Manuel Marquez. You can find it right here


More of Steve's recent work is linked below .


I can be reached at k9kim@yahoo.com and I tweet at www.Twitter.com/stevemaxboxing. We also have a Facebook fan page at www.facebook.com/MaxBoxing.

Don’t forget to check out our new Maxboxing/YouTube videos, courtesy of our outstanding videographer Brian Harty and on-air ace Radio Rahim. The videos feature... Bernard Hopkins on Chad Dawson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kin_HlUiSUI), Dawson on Hopkins (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvkfFBJnuLs) and the press conference touting their upcoming fight on October 15 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cpc2CudCzM)...

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