Crawford-Arum-Spence-Haymon.
Whenever I touch on this subject, someone comes along and points out that I?ve written about this before. In the comment section of my last article on the subject, I was even accused of doing PR for Haymon:
?But honestly Magno, you run this piece with slightly different wording every month or so, and your selective focus comes across as though you?re running PR for Haymon. It?s weird,? the reader ?Snowflake? wrote, right after pretty much agreeing with the entire premise of the article and admitting that he got a kick out of the public undressing of Bob Arum.
But, is it ?weird? when you address a persistent issue that is constantly a topic of conversation in the media and all throughout social media? Is it weird when the mainstream news continues to report on the issues surrounding Donald Trump? I mean, for fuck?s sake, what are you supposed to write about if you CAN?T write about a major issue that continues to be headline fodder across the business?especially, if it?s one that speaks directly to a major issue affecting the sport? I guess I could do some masturbatory historical boxing, warrior poet, semi-fiction and wait for the writing awards to come tumbling?before putting a bullet in my head in a fit of self-loathing?and maybe that?d be a good thing in the minds of some of you.
Yeah, I read the comments left underneath my articles here?although I do stop reading when they become silly personal attacks or when they cross over into cyber-stalking territory (which happens way too frequently for the work of a boxing writer, tbh). But, nope, nothing I read in a comment section really changes anything about what I write, how I write, or the topics about which I choose to write.
So, let?s go there once again.
Crawford-Arum-Spence-Haymon.
You?ll never shame me into stop mentioning the shameful way Terence Crawford?s career has been handled and how I feel that Bob Arum is a dangerous soul-crushing dinosaur and THE main detriment to positive change in the sport.
I couldn?t give a rat?s ass about Al Haymon, but I do believe that the original business model of his PBC project?getting the sport on free, network TV and getting legitimate big business into the fight biz?was a positive step forward and could?ve provided a gateway to legitimacy for the sport. That?s certainly no well-kept secret in terms of what I believe and where my heart is at. Getting boxing exposed to as many people as possible for the least amount of cost to them will always be my ideal and it USED to be the ideal of, like, everyone else in the boxing writing business?until an ?outsider? came into the business and incurred the wrath of media lapdogs by challenging the old guard establishment.
Haymon, even at his very worst, is doing nothing that hasn?t been perfected and established as standard business procedure by guys like Arum. Across the board, the current business model in the sport is awful and it?s sucking the soul from the sport. Everyone is contributing to the problem.
Crawford-Spence not being possible is caused by the way the entire business has allowed itself to be structured. And you?re a paint chip-munching fool if you?re sitting there taking Arum at his word that it?s Haymon, alone, standing in the way of these big fights. If you buy for one moment that Arum?s out there fuming over not being able to give the fans ?the fights they want to see? and working earnestly, honestly to do business across the aisle, you?re a real sucker.
As I wrote elsewhere:
?PBC fighters, like Top Rank fighters and Golden Boy fighters (and all other promoters? fighters) are regularly farmed out for ?out of house? bouts on other networks. But, the reality is that NOBODY is farming out their A-list fighters for fights on rival networks or even on neutral ground?It?s intellectually dishonest to suggest that Amir Khan being shipped in to lose to Crawford on an ESPN PPV or Anthony Crolla being offered for slaughter to Vasiliy Lomachenko on ESPN+ is somehow proof that Arum is willing to do business across the aisle, on equal terms, and in good faith with other business entities representing an A-list challenge for his own A-list fighters. Anybody who?s been around boxing for more than a few months should know that Arum, more so than any of his business rivals, is about keeping his assets close to home. Hell, he just put the kibosh on the all-but-signed Fury-Wilder rematch because his ?go to? strategy after signing ?The Gypsy King? was to try and force Wilder to sign with his promotional company in order to get a bout with Fury.?
If anything, Arum?s attacks on Haymon are likely aimed for the ears of Errol Spence, who he surely sees as a free agent ripe for the taking with a well-leveraged ?super fight? used as a dangling carrot. Hell, as I just mentioned, he did the exact same thing with another Haymon fighter, Deontay Wilder, when he got his hands on Wilder?s preferred big fight partner, Tyson Fury.
I do believe that Arum wants Crawford-Spence, mostly because he desperately needs to put up some big fights for ESPN?s big investments. But if you think for a second that he?s all about delivering this one big fight, on fair and equal terms, and NOT about using this mess to grab at 100% of the pie, you know nothing about how this business work or about how Arum works. And I?m going to keep writing about it?no matter how much you?d prefer I stop.
