One can always scapegoat boxing. As convenient targets go, boxing is a natural. But boxing doesn?t run itself. Boxing is run by men. Men decide who?s who and what?s what and it has little to do with the carrion underfoot.
There?s plenty of blame to go around, but among the culprits Golden Boy and Top Rank, and their exclusive relationships with Showtime and HBO, must shoulder the lion?s share of responsibility.
But depending on who you believe, only one party is at fault.
At yesterday?s Bradley-Pacquiao presser in Beverly Hills, Top Rank?s Bob Arum was asked, according to boxingscene.com, about his and Oscar De La Hoya?s ?cordial interaction.?
Arum said he and De La Hoya had a ?nice conversation? where they ?reminisced? about this and that. Their conversation was so nice that Arum concluded it wasn?t Oscar riding roughshod over hope.
?You understand that whatever is said,? said Arum, ?it has nothing to do with ?they won?t do business with us? or ?we don?t do business with them.? That?s all bullshit. I mean I lived with [Don] King for so many years where we were competitors and we did business together. The problem is Showtime. Showtime won?t deal with any promoter except Golden Boy. So why should I take a fighter and give them to Showtime when they won?t deal with Top Rank or any other promoter other than Golden Boy?
?Showtime is the one that?s at fault and CBS has allowed them to get away with this kind of thing. It?s never happened before in the sport of boxing where one entity only deals with one promoter. When is the last time another promoter?forget Top Rank? any other promoter has put a fight on for Showtime??
When asked how the situation might change, Bob Arum sounded like a broken record.
?It?s not going to happen as long as long as Showtime blocks every promoter except Golden Boy from doing fights on their network. And the fights get worse and worse and worse. Now they take a fight, a Canelo-Angulo, which belongs on Showtime and they put it on pay-per-view. What is that??
That?s tough to answer, but let me take a wild guess. Is it, paraphrasing Willie Sutton, because that?s where the money is?
?They have a guy in charge of Showtime Sports who won?t take calls from anybody,? continued Arum. ?He is bound and determined to be with Golden Boy. Now, he signed Mayweather. If you?re a subscriber for Showtime, what the hell difference does it mean to you? Mayweather isn?t on Showtime, he?s on pay-per-view. If you have a subscription, you can?t see a Mayweather fight on Showtime. It?s ridiculous.?
One needs the patience of Job and the verve of a magician to parse that out, and at the moment I have neither.
