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.”
