What About Bob??? Well, what about him? He did nothing to stall either of the two failed negotiations for a super fight between his fighter Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather…
From its inception, the fabled and ultimately ill willed Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather fight, from when it was initially proposed to its demise times two, has seemingly had one shadow cast over it that was thought would be its failing: the fact that Bob Arum doesn’t like Floyd Mayweather and the fact that Floyd Mayweather doesn’t like Bob Arum.
This single issue was the first eyebrow raise of concern, being that ?What About Bob Arum’ had once had Floyd Mayweather on his roster of fighters at his company Top Rank Promotions. The elder and the young superstar had a falling out that led Mayweather to leave Top Rank with a sour taste in his mouth, as well as in Arum’s.
Mayweather would go on to succeed without Arum, and Arum would go on to succeed without Mayweather.
Arum’s roster once boasted a top rated lightweight fighter in Floyd Mayweather; now, in the year of our lord of 2010, Top Rank owns exclusive rights to the top rated fighter in boxing in Manny Pacquiao. Mayweather himself would go on to become a pay per view and crossover star all the while letting Top Rank rival Golden Boy Promotions handle the signing of his checks for fights, and amassed 40 to 50 million in 2007 alone.
The two didn’t know it when they split, and didn’t suspect it when both moved on to greener pastures, but the rise of Manny Pacquiao into the welterweight division would once again align the elder and the superstar.
Mayweather hung his gloves up in June of 2008, and in the winter of that year Pacquiao, a career featherweight, boldly made a move north and upset Oscar De La Hoya, whom Mayweather defeated via decision the year prior. Pacquiao would go on to fell another beaten opponent of Mayweather’s in dramatic fashion with his two-round knockout of Ricky Hatton, then Pacquiao scored a knockout and a decision over two welterweights whom Mayweather never faced in Miguel Cotto and Joshua Clottey.
When Mayweather un-hung his gloves in 2009, most were already vying for him to face the new pound for pound king in Manny Pacquiao. Instead, Mayweather chose the number two ranked fighter in Juan Manuel Marquez in what turned out to be a physical mismatch as Marquez was making his first trip up to welterweight from the lightweight division, and Mayweather agreed initially to meet at a 144 pound catch weight, yet came in two pounds over and thrashed Marquez over twelve rounds. His comeback complete, most wrote off the Marquez fight as a tune up bout until Mayweather would sign on to fight Manny Pacquiao.
Here is when people were scared of the Mayweather/Arum feud.
Yet the 80 year old promoter had promptly stated that he would not stand in the way of a fight being made against his fighter, Pacquiao, and Mayweather.
Talks began in the winter of 2009, and Arum was compliant in matching his fighter up against a fighter he didn’t care too much for as a person, and even enlisted the duties of an arbitrator for the negotiations.
The negotiations failed and both Pacquiao and Mayweather would go on to face other opponents, (Joshua Clottey and Shane Mosley) as the issue of drug testing was the item that sunk the fight being made for March 2010. Pacquiao didn’t wish to subject himself to drug testing as a personal preference straight from the mouth of the new Phillippine congressman; not his promoter.
Arum had nothing to do with the negotiations failing in 2009, and he again had nothing to do with the demise of the fight happening in 2010.
After the Mayweather/Mosley fight, Arum fielded a call from HBO’s Ross Greenburg, who asked point blank if he was interested in once again engaging in negotiations for a possible Pacquiao/Mayweather fight. Arum not only agreed, he even set a gag order on all parties who would be involved in the process as to not let information leak that could potentially damage the process.
“About two months ago, just after the Mayweather-Mosley fight, I got a call from Ross Greenburg, the president of HBO Sports, who asked me frankly whether myself and Manny Pacquiao wanted to do the fight against Floyd Mayweather and I assured him after talking to Manny that was the case. From there I have had a couple of conversations with Ross and I laid out all the terms that would be acceptable to our side and I also informed him about the concession that Manny had made about drug testing. He got back to me in a couple of weeks and told me he had discussions with Al Haymon, representing Mayweather, and that everything looked good. We were nearing a resolution.”
The waters then got a little rocky, as Gerenburg was playing mediator between Top Rank and Al Haymon, Floyd Mayweather’s advisor. Greenburg apparently had served the in’s and out’s up to Haymon, and there was no definitive response from anyone involved with Team Mayweather or his promotional handlers at Golden Boy Promotions.
What else could ?What About Bob’ do? Drive directly to Mayweather’s house, knock on the door and ask him to please sign on the dotted line?
After crickets on the end of Mayweather were heard loud and clear, last week, Top Rank took action and issued a press release stating that Mayweather was now subject to a deadline to say simply, yes, or no.
The release reads as below:
-This is it, says Bob Arum.
The Money Mayweather Countdown Clock is ticking on Top Rank.com. The Final Decision will be made tonight regarding a mega fight against Manny Pacquiao on Saturday, November 13.
Could you blame him?
Nope.
Could you blame Mayweather?
Probably.
But Bob didn’t.
In fact, on the press conference call that Arum did when, being a strong 80 year old man who stayed up until 3:00 a.m. his time to address the media, was vehement in not letting anyone blame Mayweather for the fight not being made. Arum was asked if a fight never being made between his fighter and Mayweather would negatively impact the sport, and brought light that he thought there was a possible plausible reason from Mayweather’s end.
“Wait a second?I am sure, without knowing, I am sure that there is a very good reason that Floyd Mayweather has for not committing to a fight at this time. I really and truly believe that.”
Arum went further and actually even proposed the possible reason why Mayweather was hesitant to sign down for a November fight against Pacquiao.
“Now I am speculating that one of the reasons could be the uncertainty regarding Roger Mayweather and for people that don’t know, Roger Mayweather is scheduled for court in Nevada regarding criminal charges. Now I know how Manny would feel if he had to go into a fight like this without the services of Freddie Roach and presumably Floyd would feel the same way going into a fight like this without the services of his uncle Roger who has been training him for a number of years.”
Going even further, Arum even left the back door open for Mayweather.
“The fight that we want to do is Mayweather. We never said any different or acted any different. Manny wants to and has to fight in November. So we have to proceed in getting him an opponent and wrapping up a fight and if in the interim Floyd decides, despite the Roger situation, he’s ready to fight Manny?absolutely, that’s the fight we want.”
Arum even stated what everyone is thinking in the back of their heads: the catastrophe that would be never seeing the two glove up in the same ring.
“It would be a shame if it didn’t happen. I don’t think any of you guys should be too harsh on Floyd in this situation. I would have liked for him to communicate, but I really believe that this issue with the uncle has an affect. I would think that, putting myself in their shoes, that there would be a lot of reluctance of going into this big fight without my trainer. We are not going to know the outcome of this criminal situation for some time.”
Now does that sound like a promoter who is letting his own personal emotions get in the way of staging the biggest boxing event since the Mike Tyson days?
No, it does not.
There will be plenty of blame sent out.
Soon to come are many different windfalls of embarrassment for the sport as a whole, and ultimately hatred spewed at the people responsible for cheating boxing fans out of their Super Bowl: one of the few times in the sports history when the number one and number two fighters in the world are in the same weight class.
Pacquaio will fight in November, and we will found out who his opponent will be in the next week.
Sadly, it’s not going to be Floyd Mayweather
I’ll go on record and say this right now, though:
Don’t blame Bob.
