The highlight in boxing this week is the back and forth war between Top Rank Promoter Bob Arum and Floyd Mayweather adviser Leonard Ellerbe. In a conference call which coincided with the passing of the Top Rank-set Mayweather deadline, Arum contested that negotiations for the Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao megafight were all worked out and Mayweather just needed to put pen to paper. Arum said that during the negotiations, president of HBO Sports Ross Greenberg acted as a middleman between Arum and Mayweather?s manager Al Haymon. In Arum?s version of the story neither the Mayweather or Pacquiao camp met face to face during the talks.
On Monday, Ellerbe released a statement to ESPN that the talks were a fabrication of Arum and negotiations had never taken place.
?Here are the facts,? Ellerbe said in Monday?s statement. ?Al Haymon, [Golden Boy Promotions CEO] Richard Schaefer and myself speak to each other on a regular basis, and the truth is no negotiations have ever taken place, nor was there ever a deal agreed upon by Team Mayweather or Floyd Mayweather to fight Manny Pacquiao on Nov. 13. Either Ross Greenburg or Bob Arum is not telling the truth, but history tells us who is lying.?
Greenburg released a ?No Comment? as his response in an email to ESPN.com.
Greenburg obviously knows the truth one way or the other and could validate either side with a ?yes? or ?no? as to if the negotiations took place. So is the HBO executive?s silence slightly conspicuous?
Not really. The silence is Greenburg?s way of keeping all his ducks in line, not ruffling any feathers.
As in most cases with boxing, promoters may have their hands on the cookies, but HBO owns the jar.
This is not a new problem.
In 2006 Kevin Iole wrote, ?(Lou) DiBella and (Gary) Shaw are hardly allies; frequently, in fact, they?ve been at each other?s throats. But they share a sinking feeling about boxing and say part of the reason is that the quality of the matches on television aren?t what they should be. With more choices, TV viewers and live-card ticket buyers are more discriminating. The networks need to do away with the appearance fights.?
An appearance fight is when a quality fighter is put in the ring with a fighter not of his caliber a.k.a a bum, a tomato can, a polooka. It makes the quality fighter look good and gets him to the next fight with a better record, unscathed.
This past Saturday on HBO featured a fight card that is a good example in the one-sided affairs that were Timothy Bradley-Carlos Abregu and Alfredo Angulo-Joachim Alcine in which Angulo and Bradley dominated.
Lou Dibella promotes Light Middleweight boxer Kermit Cintron, who handed Angulo his one and only loss last May. Dibella, in an interview with Lem Satterfield of AOL Fanhouse on July 22, questioned HBO?s handling of Angulo post-Cintron.
?Why does HBO keep feeding bums to Angulo??, Dibella asked. ?I don?t understand how they do things with him. But that?s their prerogative, I guess.?
?The thing that bothered me a little bit was that after he beat Angulo, Angulo was given three stiffs in a row by HBO in Harry Joe Yorgey, Joel Julio and Joachim Alcine. Three guys in a row. Maybe I shouldn?t call them stiffs. Maybe that?s not fair. They were three mismatches in a row that allowed Angulo to work his way back.?
HBO has taken a similar path with Victor Ortiz.
After losing his first fight against Marcos Maidana in 2009, Ortiz was paired against much lesser fighters in Antonio Diaz and Hector Alatorre and then a shopworn Nate Campbell; all obviously in an attempt to maintain the market value of Ortiz.
SC put it best on Badlefthook.com: ? From a marketing standpoint, I get it with Ortiz. He?s a handsome kid, has a good punch, a backstory that makes you root for him, and he loves to smile and crack a joke.?
HBO?s marketing of their talent is comparable to the former Mixed Martial Arts company EliteXC and their handling of Kevin ?Kimbo Slice? Ferguson. Ferguson was being brought along as the next big thing and gained his following as a Youtube sensation where he would fight any-and-all comers in street fights.
EliteXC put Ferguson in with a wide variety of lesser competition and when he was finally pitted with an average to above average Seth Petruzelli, who stepped in short notice as a replacement fighter, Petruzelli saw Ferguson?s flaws and beat him quickly and soundly.
?I knew his legs were real skinny?, Petruzelli told me. ? His weight is upper body which is all you see with the shorts on. The size never really intimidates me, because I know that it?s functional strength not beach muscle that?s going to win you fights.?
Slice subsequently went to the Ultimate Fighting Championship where, put in against real competition, he was beaten and bounced out of the league quickly.
A model like UFC, with only the hand of Dana White commanding the action, offers a far better quality of product as far as fights go.
When talking about the potential Pacquiao-Mayweather fight on The Scott Van Pelt Show, White offered his critique.
?Once everything went to a pay model, boxing stopped giving you good fights for free. As soon as that ended, your market starts to shrink when you?re only on pay-per-view,? White said. ?Before this Mayweather/Pacquiao fight happens, let?s say a miracle happens and they get this thing done [tonight], the fight will probably be done sometime in November, right??
?I?ll have done 10 fights. I?ll have done 10 fights and maybe out of the 10 fights, four of them will be on free TV by the time that fight happens. That?s the difference.?
The difference is that Dana White and the UFC would have made the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight or one of the fighters would be looking for a different, less profitable umbrella company to fight under.
The problem no doubt lies in the variety of promotional companies acting as the puppets with HBO Sports as the puppeteer, but with no good fights to look forward to, how many fans are going to stick around for the show?
Feedback with opinions on how problems such as these in boxing could be remedied are more than encouraged and we look forward to your comments.
