LAS VEGAS ? It was a promising day and night for boxing, until the fight started.
On Saturday morning , top trainer Freddie Roach and USA boxing announced a partnership. Roach will have a major say in the selection and development of the 2012 Olympic boxing team. Americans won no golds or silvers in Beijing, and Andre Ward was the only champion in Athens four years before that. ADVERTISEMENT More from Mark Whicker No-thrills victory: Pacquiao dominates Mosley Angels’ Thompson a rare find from Down Under Family provides foundation for top rookie Griffin
Meanwhile, Vegas was genuinely geeked over a fight that would happen in a squared circle and not an octagon.
Manny Pacquiao’s battle with Shane Mosley, 39, sold out MGM Grand Garden Arena in three hours. In the afternoon, Pacquiao was far more worried about tickets that he couldn’t get for his horde of instant friends than he was about Mosley.
The run-up to the fight, and the stories in each camp, were shown on CBS, the parent company of Showtime. With a strong pay-per-view showing, Arum was hoping to put the sport back on network TV at some point. In doing so he was also using CBS/Showtime as a lever to raise the price of admission for the Time Warner networks, such as HBO and Turner.
Boxing’s resurgence continued through the undercard and reached high tide during the pre-fight instructions.
Then Pacquiao and Mosley turned off the water, and the night will be remember for the first sustained boos that anyone has heard in a fight involving Pac-Man.
If you can’t get stirred or shaken for Pacquiao, when can you?
Thanks to Arum’s seething war with Golden Boy Promotions, Pacquiao’s next fight might not be better than this one, and certainly not as alluring.
It will happen either at the MGM Grand on Nov. 5 or at Thomas & Mack Center on Nov. 12.
Floyd Mayweather? He is hardly mentioned anymore, with his legal problems and the fact that Pacquiao is suing him, and Golden Boy Promotions, for defamation of character.
No, the first man up is Juan Manuel Marquez, who is 38 but has a solid history against Pacquiao as a lightweight.
Marquez got a draw against Pacquiao even though Pac-Man knocked him down three times in the first round. Then Marquez lost a split decision that raised an eyebrow or two.
Marquez is coming off a tough TKO of Michael Katsidis and a decision over Juan Diaz. He lost handily to Mayweather before that, but he does bring savvy and credibility.
He is a better lightweight than welterweight, however, and Pacquiao is no longer interested in fighting below 147 pounds. Marquez also is affiliated with Golden Boy, which has talked of matching him against fellow client Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, a proven turnstile-clicker.
Arum said he and Marquez met Saturday morning after Marquez had nixed an offer of $5 million to fight Pacquiao. They will talk again Monday.
Plan B is Tim Bradley, another lightweight who is undefeated, young and irresistibly quick. Arum has been slow to acknowledge Bradley as a Pacquiao-worthy opponent, but attrition is a powerful thing.
Plan Z is next. That stands for Zab Judah, whose function is to prove that Arum can still say anything and keep a straight face.
Judah has a light-welterweight belt but barely survived Lucas Matthysse last November. He lost to Joshua Clottey, who was helpless against Pacquiao, and also has lost to Mayweather and Cory Spinks.
“He is a proven pay-per-view performer,” Arum said.
Are there legitimate welterweights out there? Sure. Victor Ortiz just finished dismantling the previously unbeaten Andre Berto. But Arum says Ortiz needs to spend the rest of this year raising his profile before he deserves the same stage as Pacquiao, possibly in late 2012.
“Nobody knows who he is now,” Arum said.
Well, we know that Ortiz is a Golden Boy fighter. And that takes care of that.
“It’s not Top Rank vs. Golden Boy,” Arum said, agitated. “It’s a Manny Pacquiao fight. They defamed him. He wants to run for president of the Phillippines. He doesn’t want that stain on his record. The judge refused to throw out the case. It will be decided by a jury.
“They (Golden Boy) can fix everything by making a true and contrite apology. And then Manny might not object to them being involved in a promotion. But it’s got nothing to do with me.”
That prompted laughter in the audience. Arum, with only one working ear, somehow heard it.
“You can laugh all you want,” he bellowed. “If I said I saw you sleeping with some guy last night and said it in front of everybody, you wouldn’t forgive me.
“Unless you were so inclined.”
The mass laughter finally prompted a smile from Arum. The ring was empty now, and the sport of boxing was back in the place where it seems to thrive. The talking stage.
