You think things were chilly between the United States and the Soviet Union in the 70’s? Or that ‘The Game’ and ’50 Cent’ are currently not seeing eye-to-eye? They’ve got nothing on the acrimony between Bob Arum’s Top Rank Boxing and Golden Boy Promotions, which is led by Oscar De La Hoya and Richard Schaeffer.
After the September 17th date on HBO Pay-Per-View was eventually given to De La Hoya’s company for Marco Antonio Barrera to face Robbie Peden, Arum -who was irate in not getting that precious date (which falls on the weekend of Mexican Independence Day) for Erik Morales – scheduled his own show on that date featuring Mexican icon Julio Cesar Chavez, as he continues his ‘Adios’ tour at the America West Arena in Phoenix, Arizona. This show, which will also feature Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. and an interesting scrap between local favorite Jesus Gonzales and Jose Luis Zertuche, will be televised for free on TV Azteca.
It wasn’t that long ago that Arum and De La Hoya – in much happier times – did boffo business on a regular basis on the third Saturday of every September.
Now, they are mortal enemies. But this scheduling conflict is just a coincidence, right?
“No, the timing is not coincidental, it’s Mexican Independence Day; it’s a valuable date that people want to see a fight,” Arum stated on Wednesday afternoon at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where the official announcement was being made for the Morales-Pacquiao doubleheader taking place on September 10th at the Staples Center. What really irked Arum was just how Barrera got that date. “De La Hoya was holding that date for his own fight and then he bait-and-switched and suddenly Barrera ended up with the date.
“But they don’t control Mexican Independence Day and Chavez, when he found out about it, said, ‘I want to fight on September 17th. I’m the most popular Mexican going,’ and so he’s fighting,” said Arum of this mini-Mexican civil war.
“People can make their choice,” Arum continued. “They can see Julio, his son, there’s a helluva fight between Gonzales and Zertuche and (Johnny) Tapia may be on the card. I mean it’s a helluva card and they don’t pay zippo, they don’t even need cable to watch.
“Or they can spend $44.95 to see Barrera fight his sparring partner. People can make their own decisions.”
Schaeffer, who runs De La Hoya’s promotional firm on a day-to-day basis, doesn’t seem too concerned about the Chavez show.
“I know it’s not going to be on one of the prime television networks so I’m not so worried from that point,” he said, adding, “but it just shows you what kind of guy Bob Arum is.”
TV Azteca certainly doesn’t have the viewing audience of Univision or even Telefutura in the United States, but according to it’s website, TV Azteca “is one of the two largest producers of Spanish language television programming in the world, operating two national television networks through 315 owned and operated stations across Mexico.”
So perhaps it will affect sales in Mexico, and if the ‘Adios’ in Arizona sells out the 17,000 seat America West Arena, it will adversely affect pay-per-view numbers in a region that has traditionally done strong numbers with Latin-based pay-per-view events.
There’s no doubt Arum still harbors hard feelings with the way September 17th – a date which he felt was his – was doled out.
“I sure did,” he said with a laugh. “But we obviously are here to announce September 10th, so we decided to go ahead with September 10th, and is there any bitterness? There’s a lot of bitterness.”
The interesting twist is that Chavez’s ‘Adios’ tour is being managed by Fernando Beltran, who just happens to have a close working relationship with Top Rank and has managed Morales, the arch enemy of Barrera, throughout his career.
“Honestly, we don’t care,” said Beltran of the conflicting shows. “We don’t care about HBO. They can do whatever they want. Fortunately we know that in our last fight we sold 350,000 buys; we know who the big market is. We know that Erik Morales is a good pay-per-view fighter. If they don’t appreciate it, that’s their problem. Erik Morales sells more than their heavyweights.”
At Wednesday’s press conference, Morales made it a point to tell the gathered media: “I’m going to celebrate September 17th; it’s a true Mexican date and I’m not going to work that date. That way I’m going to be celebrating and I invite you all to watch Julio Cesar Chavez in Phoenix on open TV.”
De La Hoya has now made his intentions clear that he will be fighting next Cinco De Mayo weekend and the next Mexican Independence Day weekend in September of 2006.
For two companies who deal with as many Latin fighters as Top Rank and Golden Boy, those are key dates. But why should we believe De La Hoya this time around?
“Because first of all, he was planning on fighting November 12th,” explained Schaeffer. “We wanted to do the deal with Winky Wright, it didn’t happen. Oscar’s wife got pregnant, Oscar says, ‘I really don’t want any distractions when I fight. I want to be 100-percent. I want to be able to focus and not worry about my wife being pregnant and alone in Puerto Rico.’ So he said he’d rather just wait until next year.
“So we informed HBO accordingly, so we’ll deal with it then. He thinks as well if you look at the reason fighters who took some time off, that it actually helped them. That they came back more focused, sharper and hungrier, maybe. He just thinks at this point of his career that’s what he wants to do.”
And guess what? Arum is skeptical of it all.
“He can stake any claim that he wants but you don’t put this type of flag up there because I don’t personally believe that he’s going to keep either commitment and what he’s doing is trying to reserve the dates for his fighters and that’s just wrong,” stated Arum. “He can do it but I think on September 17th, he may learn that that is not proper behavior.”
PETER-KLITSCHKO – DONE DEAL, RIGHT?
So Samuel Peter will take on Wladimir Klitschko on September 24th, right? It’s signed, sealed and delivered, correct?
Well, it was for a quick second.
“Earlier today we thought it was done,” said Shelly Finkel on Thursday afternoon. “A last minute snag has happened and hopefully it can be worked out by tomorrow.”
