Oscar De La Hoya, founder of Golden Boy Promotions, meets with Bob Arum to bury the hatchet with hopes of featuring more high-profile boxing matches.
The Cold War between two of boxing’s biggest promotional firms – Golden Boy and Top Rank – may finally be headed for a thaw.
Oscar De La Hoya, who founded Golden Boy Promotions more than a decade ago, told the Daily News on Thursday that he had traveled to Bob Arum’s home in Beverly Hills to discuss working with Arum and ending the feud that has kept many high-profile matches in boxing from being made, including the biggest of them all, Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao.
“I did go up to his house to make peace with him,” De La Hoya said in a phone interview. “I told him, ‘Look, this meeting is not a business meeting. Let’s bury the hatchet. And who knows, maybe down the road we can work together.’ Top Rank is a major player in the boxing industry and Golden Boy is the player in the boxing industry. So why not get the two powerhouses together and make the fights that the fans want to see?”
De La Hoya, who says he is now clean and sober and wants to take a more active role in the company, and Richard Schaefer, the CEO of Golden Boy, are also feuding and are currently engaged in a power struggle to determine who leads the firm.
The two haven’t spoken in nearly a month and though De La Hoya is scheduled to attend Saturday’s big fight between Mayweather and Marcos Maidana (which is co-promoted by Golden Boy) Schaefer told the Daily News he has no intentions of talking to De La Hoya while they’re in Las Vegas.
The genesis of the disagreement between De La Hoya and Schaefer centers around De La Hoya’s recent desire to work with Arum and Schaefer’s refusal to do business with the octogenarian.
Lawyers representing both Schaefer and De La Hoya are currently negotiating Schaefer’s future role at the company, which could include his exit, both men admitted. Though lawyers are involved in the discussions, De La Hoya said, “There are no lawsuits right now.”
The substance of their rift might also extend beyond Top Rank.
In a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court against Golden Boy (and other parties) over a light heavyweight title fight that wasn’t made in January, Kathy Duva of Main Events (a promoter) alleges that Al Haymon (a powerful adviser) and Schaefer have “entered into an alliance” to “wrest control of Golden Boy from Oscar De La Hoya for their own financial gain,” according to a copy of the complaint obtained by the Daily News.
Arum said in a phone interview that Schaefer is “gutting (Golden Boy) by transferring in effect fighters who are Golden Boy fighters to Haymon.”
However, Schaefer called the lawsuit “frivolous” and said the accusation that he is stealing fighters “bull—-” Friday in a phone interview. “I’m not going to even get into it,” he said.
De La Hoya declined to get into specifics over the claim but admitted that most of Golden Boy’s fighters are not under contract. Of Arum’s comments, De La Hoya said only that Arum is a “smart lawyer.”
Schaefer sounded surprised on Friday when he learned that De La Hoya and Arum had met face-to-face. But he reiterated his stance to never work with Arum because of their differences of opinion and personal animosity for one other.
Arum also confirmed the meeting with De La Hoya and suggested it could bear fruit in terms of the two companies working together.
“We’ve met and spoken but I’m not going to go into what we’ve spoken about,” Arum said in a phone interview. “I would certainly say that none of this nonsense of Cold War and ‘I won’t deal with this guy’ – none of that will prevail if Oscar takes over the company. There will be no animosity between the two companies.”
De La Hoya said that business wasn’t discussed on Thursday but could envision that changing.
“Maybe the next meeting will be working out a plan to fight Top Rank fighters against Golden Boy fighters,” he said. “Maybe that will be the case in the future.”
De La Hoya seemed to urge Schaefer to also bury the hatchet with Arum for the good of the sport when he said: “Bob Arum is a businessman. Richard is a businessman. Get this done, for the fans, for the sport.”
De La Hoya said he has no interest in firing Schaefer, just in clarifying their vision for the company.
“I keep hearing rumors that Richard is going to get fired,” De La Hoya said. “That’s not the case. I want him to stay. There’s no reason that he should be thinking that. I want him to stay.”
The outcome of the discussions between Schaefer and De La Hoya could arrive “in the coming weeks,” according to Schaefer. Mayweather told reporters on Tuesday that if Schaefer does leave, he could work for him at Mayweather Promotions, suggesting that if Schaefer and De La Hoya go their separate ways Mayweather would align himself with Schaefer. Rumors have also circulated that Schaefer could even work with Haymon.
Schaefer told reporters on Tuesday that De La Hoya’s sudden need to work with Arum is perhaps “the point in the rehab where you have to forgive everybody,” a reference to De La Hoya’s hospitalization for addiction last September. “I can appreciate that,” Schaefer went on. “I don’t have a problem with that if they want to make peace and make up, but to start doing business with him again – that’s just not who I am.”
De La Hoya said he’s been clean and sober for “quite a while now” and that he hasn’t received care for substance abuse since he checked himself into a treatment facility just days before Mayweather faced Saul (Canelo) Alvarez last September.
“I’m not just a motivation for the boxing world anymore,” De La Hoya said. “I’m a motivation now for the world because everybody has problems. Everybody has issues. I can now say I got off the canvas and I’m going to rise to the occasion, and I’m going to win this fight.”
Of course, it’s not clear if De La Hoya was talking about his battles with addiction or with his conflict with Schaefer.
