“I think I said it because I get the question asked so many times that, obviously, I was fed up and tired of it and I just said like, yeah, yeah, it’s gonna get made,” De La Hoya said to BoxingScene.com.
“So it was a quick answer that I should have obviously thought about. But, obviously, negotiations weren’t going on. Nothing was going on. Like I said, Mayweather has the key to making that fight happen.”
Bob Arum rarely disappoints when a journalist rings him up expecting real or imagined rivals to be ripped to verbal shreds and Tuesday was no exception when I phoned the Top Rank head honcho in Las Vegas.
I asked a leading question, as if on cross examiation with the wide latitude afforded thereto, hoping to get a quick rise out of the 78 year old promotional giant.
But Uncle Bob didn’t really bite when I asked if he ?felt vindicated? by HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg’s rubber stamping Arum’s continuing public assertion that Team Manny Pacquiao made every good faith effort to make a Pacman-Floyd Mayweather Jr. Super Bout a reality for Nov. 13.
In an email to The LA Times, Greenburg, in a carefully pased statement, said he acted as the middleman between the two camps beginning on May 2 in hopes of bringing to them to the table and producing a bout contract.
As you know, all the actors on Team Mayweather, save for always silent (publicly) adviser Al Haymon, said no such negotiations ever happened, that all this was a myth perpetuated by the notoriously loose with the truth Arum and perhaps also by the HBO boxing bossman.
?Why should I feel vindicated?? Arum barked into his cell phone. ?You heard my conference call, I got nothing to be vindicated about. I knew exactly what happened and I told the media what happened. So, no, I don’t feel vindicated because there’s nothing for me to be vindicated about.?
Bottom line to their not getting to any bottom line, I inquired, is the fact of the matter that Haymon could not get Mayweather to seriously discuss terms and conditions?
Bingo, bingo, bingo, said Uncle Bob.
?Absolutely that is what transpired,? Arum said. ?I believe that’s what happened and so does Ross. Haymon wanted to make the fight happen and to make it happen for November but he couldn’t entice his client.?
Arum had kind words for Mayweather handler Leonard Ellerbe even though Ellerbe is blasting Arum as a liar who is jealous because L’il Floyd has earned millions of dollars since leaving the Top Rank corral.
?I cut Leonard some slack, Leonard only works for one guy and that is Floyd. When Floyd says jump, Leonard says, ‘How high?’ I don’t think Leonard is any kind of a bad guy and I base that on all my dealings with him when Mayweather was promoted by me.?
Arum, true to historic form, did have some blasts for Golden Boys Oscar de la Hoya and Richie Rich Schaefer.
?Did you know Oscar’s busy with a movie project?? Arum asked.
?Yeah, he’s involved with a movie coming out on Friday, it’s called ‘Dinner With Schmucks.’?
This is what passes for high humor in Arumville.
?Oscar is the guy without a clue but, as for Schaefer, what credibility does this guy have left now?
?Schaefer is a guy who has sold his soul completely and cannot be believed on anything,? Arum said.
Since Schaefer has said publicly he’s willing to take a lie detector test to prove there were no attempts at negotiation, Arum then had a clever idea.
?We can have the lie detector tests and, if Schaefer is shown to be the liar, then Golden Boy can give all their HBO boxing dates to me.?
