Arum on Mayweather-Ortiz, Pacquiao-Marquez, More
By Michael Marley
Maybe it was being cooped upon a transcontinental flight from France to New York.
Whatever the reason, globetrotting promoter Bob Arum was a real Chatty Kathy when he rang me up Thursday afternoon to discuss his take on Manny Pacquiao, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and other boxers.
Arum and wife Lovee are extending their vacation in the rarefied seaside air of the Hamptons over the weekend but the Top Rank top dog gets back to work fulltime next week starting with making a final decision as to whether HBO or Showtime will handle Pacman’s Nov. 12 trilogy title bout against Juan Manuel Marquez, the Pinoy Idol’s Mexican archrival.
We’ll get to that, a topic I feel Joe Fight Fan is not that keen on anyway, but probably the most tantalizing verbal tidbit Uncle Bob had to offer was how the Mayweather-Vicious Victor Ortiz HBO Sept. 17 PPB bout turns out.
Go figure, but Arum claims he hopes it is a barnburner.
“I’ll tell you the truth,” Arum said, “if they put on a good fight, a fight that the fans like, well then it helps us on Nov. 12.
“If that fight is a stinker, then it will hurt us. You get a buzz going forward from an exciting fight and you get hurt by a stinker when you’re the next event after that. So this is why I want Mayweather-Ortiz to be a good fight.”
Well, why wouldn’t it be compelling giving Ortiz’s returned aggression, I asked Arum.
“Because you don’t know, you never know, how Mayweather will fight. Is Mayweather going to enghge the guy or is he just going to jab and move, jab and move.”
Arum has little doubt as to the winner of the bout.
“If Mayweather just boxes, just does enough to win, then he wins. The kid (Ortiz) is very inexperienced in many respects and I’ll tell you what I don’t like is that he lunges a lot. He punches in a lunging way and he leaves himself open like that. He may be made to order for Mayweather.”
Arum said he is examining and then re-examining the final, complete offers for Marquez-Pacquiao III as made by Showtime and HBO.
The promoter revealed that the broadcast deal is a one off although “we thought about making it for two bouts.
“This is a tough decision and we have a lot to consider from both. But we will make a decision in the middle of next week,” Arum said.
As far as an eventual Mayweather-Pacquiao showdown goes, Arum said silly remarks like one recently made by Floyd Mayweather Sr. don’t help the situation.
“Floyd’s father said, if they fight, Pacquiao has to do all of his training here in the United States.’ Who ever heard anybody ever say something like that and who knows why he says that?
“You can’t tell someone where they have to train.”
