Boxing is unique among the sports in that the outcome of a fight is less about the combatants in the ring and more about the cloak-and-dagger going on behind the scenes. Sure, the mob’s been chased out of the action; this isn’t like film noir where the hard-boiled detective has to figure out who murdered the fighter who refused to take a dive. But the simple fact remains that with powerful promoters, like Bob Arum of Top Rank, the fight’s not about the guys in the ring, and it’s never been about the guys in the ring.
Which brings us to Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley.
Your columnist will always believe that Pacquiao-Bradley I was Arum’s attempt to send Manny off by selling him out, pushing Bradley as the giant-slayer and giving him what the pro wrestling folks call “push”, setting up a big-money fight between Bradley and, if not Floyd Mayweather, then one of the other power players in the division, which would win over the public and set the wheels in motion for another five or ten years of lucrative pay-per-view money.
We all saw what happened in the actual fight. Bradley was beaten so badly that he was put in the hospital, even Stevie Wonder scored the fight for Pacquiao, but the judges, crooked as Richard Nixon (there’s a good reason CJ Ross isn’t judging fights anymore, even if it took Mayweather-Alvarez to finally put her out to pasture), submitted their pre-determined scores in Bradley’s favor.
A rematch was called; the exceptionally pliant Glenn Trowbridge (he of the 116-112 score in Pacquiao-Marquez III) scored it 10 rounds to 2 for Pac, the rest of the judges scored it a more reasonable 8 to 4, and the public?especially the Filipino public, who love their fighters more than Duggar women love getting pregnant?well, let’s not say “rejoiced”, but were placated.
Still, Arum had a problem. His champion was a dog. All anyone could talk about was Floyd Mayweather. The Chris Algieri fight (especially in light of how bloody obvious it was that Algieri had gotten the Arum Delight from the judges against Ruslan Provodnikov) did nothing to curtail this belief.
Then Floyd kicked Manny’s ass.
For Bob Arum, Manny Pacquiao has caused him nothing but trouble for four years now. It’s like having genital herpes. It comes back like a persistent itch, the outbreak passes, things settle down, lather, rinse, repeat. You can’t cure it, you just take your Valtrex and hope for the best.
To make matters worse, Arum’s chokehold on the WBO doesn’t look near as secure as it once did. The WBO’s champion is Jessie Vargas?a Top Rank guy. Vargas is young (26), bankable (especially with Hispanic fight fans), and he’s coming off a whupping of Sadam Ali on HBO three weeks ago in which he dropped Ali twice and left no question of his legitimacy as a potential champion-of-the-future at welterweight (even more so with Al Haymon’s house in disarray keeping Keith Thurman and Amir Khan off the radar and with Kell Brook stuck in the UK unable to crack the American casual fight fan’s consciousness.) Sure, Thurman’s got next with his fight with Shawn Porter in June, but a lot can happen between now and then.
Vargas, by the way, lost to Bradley in convincing fashion last June.
Bradley’s always going to have the stink of that fight with Pacquiao on him from four years ago, and if Arum tries to push Bradley again to set up another Vargas fight but Manny doesn’t cooperate? That’s going to make Bradley a pariah.
Without his own stable, nobody in the division is going to touch that WBO belt, which means Vargas will be easier to tempt to somewhere else (he’d have made a prime target for Haymon before PBC started sliding into what looks like an I-told-you-so oblivion, but Mayweather Promotions isn’t going anywhere and Vargas has worked with Floyd before.)
So Arum’s stuck. He either rigs the fight for the guy who’s still going to be fighting after April 9 but who has lost to Pacquiao twice (scorecards aside), or he lets Manny have the last hurrah and the win and he’s left without an opponent for his champion.
Let’s face it…Bob Arum is screwed.
