It’s comical to hear the way promoters Bob Arum and Don King are engaging in somewhat of a lovefest after being so sour toward one another for decades.
The two on Thursday hosted a conference call promoting next Saturday’s junior middleweight title fight between champion Miguel Cotto of Puerto Rico and Ricardo Mayorga of Nicaragua at MGM Grand in Las Vegas (on Showtime pay-per-view). The praise Arum and King gave each other was rather sugary.
“There’s never been a better salesman in boxing than Don King,” Arum said. “I worked my tail off as a promoter because I had such a measuring stick, a bar to reach. I think Don made me a lot better promoter than I would have been and I think I made Don a better promoter than he would have been.
“Contrast this to other so-called promoters who, all they can do today when they get competition is whine and complain and shriek that a promoter has their fighters fighting their own fighters, instead of getting out and competing against me and Don.”
That was a shot at Arum’s former fighter and now fellow promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, and his Golden Boy Promotions CEO, Richard Schaefer. The two have beefed that all Arum wants to do is pit his own fighters against one another, thereby pocketing more of the profits.
“I have no problem dealing with another promoter,” Arum said. “The operative word is promoter. Don King is a promoter. He knows how to sell a fight and he knows how to sell an event.” Advertisement
King, who promotes Mayorga, gladly returned the love.
“It’s great to be working with a real professional like Bob,” King said. “He’s a real professional promoter. … I never would have known how good I was if I wouldn’t have had Bob Arum.”
This is all leading in one direction. Arum wants to do Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather Jr. He doesn’t want Golden Boy – which has promoted Mayweather’s past few fights – to have a hand in it. Mayweather had a sit-down with King late last year, and Mayweather had a chance meeting with Arum at the Super Bowl.
Two sets of negotiations between Arum’s Top Rank and Golden Boy did not bear fruit.
“If Don had Mayweather and I have Pacquiao, I didn’t say the fight would be made in a day, I said the fight would be made within one hour,” Arum said, recalling some previous comments. “Don and I would have cut to the essentials. We would have worked out the few details and we make the fight.
“Mayweather would do well to go with Don. It would be one of the greatest promotions ever.”
