Michael Marley
12/2/2008
(Editor's Note: Give the promoters credit for whistling while they work. While they were spinning on their call, the market took another beating, with the Dow falling 679.95 points for a 7.70 percentage loss. When it rains, it pours.)
Co-promoters Bob Arum and Richard Schaefer visited both the sunny and rainy sides of the boxing street in their international media conference call Monday. The Top Rank top honcho and the head man at Golden Boy Promotions were optimistic about the Manny Pacquiao-Oscar De La Hoya being dramatic in the ring and doing respectable numbers in the PPV TV market.
At the same time, both businessmen said that boxing will have to weather some rough water moving forward economically.
Arum, Hall Of Fame promoter with four decades of big bouts under his belt, injected some humor into the call by asking for “prayers” for a PPV buy rate anywhere close to the record 2.4 million ($134 million gross) achieved by Oscar and Floyd Mayweather in 2007.
“You don’t know,” Arum said. “It’s like an election in that you don’t know until the ballots are counted. If you go by a church and throw in a few Ave Marias, we invite all your prayers.”
It's not every Fight Week you have a Jewish fight promoter asking for Catholic prayers.
Arum said he thinks the bad blood between Oscar and Manny and Oscar and Pacman trainer Freddie Roach may lead to a compelling bout.
“I think it can become a true classic like Ali-Frazier III, like Leonard-Hagler and like Hagler-Hearns,” Arum said. “I think it can be a fight that will go down in history like that.”
Schaefer said the aggressive styles will all but guarantee more action than Oscar and Mayweather produced.
“It’s not Dancing With the Stars this time,” Schaefer said. “It’s going to be a fight, an exciting fight.”
In response to a question about an amateur turning pro and why he’s not been signed, Schaefer said young boxers must be realistic.
“Some of these fighters think we are living back in 2007,” Schaefer said. “They think they can get sign on bonuses and big purses right away. That is not a reality any more.”
The Golden shotcaller also said fight sponsors and their rebates will pump up the oscar-Manny PPV market.
“That is something that can give us a big leg up on the Mayweather fight. We did not have sponsors doing that back in 2007.”
Schaefer did not bother to add what everyone knows.
In the fiscal sunshine of May, 2007, sponsors did not need to give anything back to the consumer.
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