Boxing Examiner | Michael Marley
Bob Arum, basking in the glow of one of his most masterful coups since he sold the world on the idea that Evel Knievel was actually going to jump the Snake River Canyon with a motorcycle, said Tuesday that he remains “amazed” at what he labeled the “nuts and totally bizarre” conduct of Floyd Mayweather’s team.
“What can I say, they made baseless and false allegations about Manny but they were in the ring against me, the greatest counterpuncher of all time!”
Arum, who will be elbow to elbow with his new billionaire buddy Jerry Jones at lavish Manny Pacquiao-Joshua Clottey press conferences in Dallas next Tuesday and at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday, said he will stage the Pacman bout at the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium with or without the backing of HBO PPV.
“It’s going to be spectacular, the biggest Manny Pacquiao event yet,” Arum said from his Las Vegas office. “Forget the boxers because I get to pick four of the Cowboy cheerleaders to work as the round card girls. Now that is important.”
Arum was tightlipped about details but another source hinted that Jones is going to bring the full force of his NFL franchise’s marketing and publicity arms and perhaps tap into some league sources to hype Pacman-Clottey on both network and cable networks.
“Jerry is the best promoter I have ever seen and he is so enthusiastic,” Arum said.
Knievel's Snake River Canyon jump, a special Bob Arum promotion
Mayweather’s plans, meanwhile, are clouded except that Golden Boy Promotions keep insisting he will fight somebody, maybe former lightweight champion Nate Campbell on the same March 13 date (MGM Grand), going head to head with the top rated contender from Ghana fighting for Manny’s WBO 147 pound belt.
(Click here to see the fan backlash to Pacquiao-Mayweather not taking place.)
Arum cited a Fightnews report by Craig Watt in which Ricky Hatton’s brother repeated his assertion that GBP’s Richard Schaefer and Mayweather minder Leonard Ellerbe both called his reps “a month ago” about fighting the unbeaten Floyd in the UK.
“That shows you,” Arum said, “they never has any true intention of fighting Manny next. They have this bizarre mentality, these people, that you have to drink the Mayweather Kool Aid, that everything I do and everyone else does is about Mayweather, that the world revolves around him.
“As far as Campbell, I can’t believe it. I really can’t believe it. Mayweather and Campbell, where is that going? Campbell quit in his last fight. What are they thinking about?”
Arum said he wouldn’t respond to Oscar de la Hoya’s jab that the 79 year old head of Top Rank is “a T- Rex dinosaur.”
Then, of course, he did jab back at his former charge.
“You can go back to the schoolyard with that remark,” Arum said. “It’s not even original, calling me a dinosaur because Bernard (Hopkins) said it some years ago. Do I really need to respond to such a profound statement, a statement that comes from a mental genius like Oscar?”
Arum repeated his references to “McCarthyism” in reports from unnamed sources, first by Tim Smith in the New York Daily News and then by Teddy Atlas on ESPN, that someone on the Pacman side sent email(s) to the Mayweather camp asking what could happen if Manny came up dirty on a drug test.
“That was written and said by syncophants of Mayweather, by people who got caught up in it, who drink the Mayweather Kool-Aid,” Arum said. “There are no emails, if there were don’t you think they would have been waving them all around? I don’t even know to actually send an email, I don’t type on the computer. Only Todd (TR president duBoef) was sending out emails and he didn’t send out anything like that.”
Arum also repeated his shots at former Swiss banker Schaefer and said his background never prepared him to deal with Mayweather.
“Al Haymon needs someone to go in the forefront for him and Schaefer doesn’t know how to handle someone like Floyd. He can’t handle Floyd the way Don King would handle him.”
If Herr Schaefer or Oskie care to respond to Counterpuncher Bob, they can dial me directly at 917 853 4484 at any given time.
That goes triple for Leonard Ellerbe.
I am trying for an Equal Time Doctrine here but I’m not sipping anyone’s Kool-Aid.
Source: Examiner.com
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