Bob Arum has a dream. At his age and after all he has accomplished, one might think there were no more mountains left to climb. But once a mountaineer always a mountaineer, and Arum sees a veritable mountain of money when he looks at Tyson Fury.
With the big man?s big fight with a little-known German bruiser Tom Schwarz on June 15 fast approaching, Arum is singing Fury?s praises, and can be forgiven if he sings off-key.
Fury is putting the finishing touches on his training at the Top Rank gym in Vegas. Later this week he?ll fly by private jet to L.A., where he?ll make the rounds of the late night talk shows.
Of the many things Fury is, threatening isn?t among them, despite his size. With his gift of gab, he?s a natural for late night TV, where they talk endlessly of nothing while pretending to speak of something. If Fury can stick with the script, hide his innermost thoughts, and hold his tongue until the next commercial, America might just embrace him, which is what Arum is counting on.
It might be degrading to some, were Fury not used to being paraded like a thoroughbred. But in the words of Tim Witherspoon, ?It?s like we?re racehorses. They race us till we drop, and then they shoot us.? Still, in the meantime, we?ll see Fury do many things. He will sing. He will dance. He will make jokes. He will tell stories. He will confess. He will flatter and insult. He will fascinate and outrage. And best of all he will occasionally fight.
But there?s no guarantee Fury will get to do much fighting when he faces underdog Tom Schwarz at the MGM Grand. He is unbeaten, but Schwarz has never fought someone with Fury?s skills who is 6-foot-9. He has never fought a basketball player who punched with authority. But that doesn?t concern Bob Arum. The sport may be called boxing, but winning is the name of the game, and he has big plans for the big man who lacks a big punch, the whole P.T. Barnum treatment, with a little boxing thrown in for good measure.
But don?t take it from me. Take it from Bob Arum.
?When I met him and talked with him, immediately in my head two names came and one was Muhammad Ali and the other was Foreman,? said Arum. ?He can talk like Ali and resonate like Foreman. They will be attracted to him like they were with George Foreman.?
Foreman is a special case. But why quibble?
?In talking to Tyson Fury, I realized I could do for Tyson what I did for George Foreman,? continued Arum. ?George Foreman, you remember, had a great career. He took 10 years off. He came back, he was a minister, and he set the world on fire, the boxing world, the sport?s world, and the public; not only with his ability, but more than that, with his charisma, and he became larger than life. Endorsements came one after another. Finally, with one endorsement, he hit the jackpot, and that was the Foreman Grill, which he sold his interest for almost a quarter of a billion dollars.?
Fury is already larger than life. He has already won the jackpot. He is riding high and wanted to clarify Arum?s remarks.
?What Bob was referring to wasn?t Foreman the fighter,? said Fury, ?but what he did with him as a promoter, i.e., he got him the grill deal which made him $250 million. I said to Bob, what?s your motivation for this deal? He told me he wants to ride a massive wave of success with Tyson Fury and I?ll say that motivates me as well. I want to ride a massive tidal wave, a tsunami, of big fights. That?s what I want to do. I want to cement my legacy of the greatest of my era and my division.?
Arum wasn?t done.
?I realized that he (Fury) will mesmerize the U.S. market,? Arum said. ?As far as his boxing ability, he has the ability. That?ll take care of itself. He has a trainer that will be able to prepare him for his fights. But as personality, he will take America by storm. Not only does he have behind him the biggest sports network in the world ESPN, which has five channels in the U.S. alone 24/7, feeding the public sporting events, talks about sports, he?ll be a feature on ESPN. But ESPN is a subsidiary of Disney, and he will have the entire Disney organization behind him. That means he will be booked on our late night shows on ABC with Jimmy Kimmel; millions of people watch it, because we are not just satisfied with making an impact with Tyson just with the boxing fans or just with the sports fans. We want the public at large to know him, care for him, to listen to his story. We think when that happens, he will be the most famous athlete in the world. That?s our goal. There?s no question that [Fury vs. Schwarz] will be sold out. It?ll be a sellout.?
Anything is possible, as Arum surely knows.
Consider George Foreman. Consider Tom Schwarz.
