by David P. Greisman
Bob Arum of Top Rank, speaking this week to Las Vegas radio station ESPN 1100, compared Floyd Mayweather Jr. to an infamous Nazi propaganda minister.
Arum said this of the difficulty in negotiating with Mayweather, according to a transcript of the conversation from SportsRadioInterviews.com and a copy of the audio posted on that website:
“It’s outrageous. What do you mean take the test? For two years Pacquiao has said that he will take any drug test, whoever administers it, so why is that still being talked about by Mayweather? You see, Mayweather is from the school of propaganda that Joseph Goebbels, who was Hitler’s publicist, adopted. The more you say things over and over again the more people believe them.
“The fact is clear that Pacquiao has agreed to unlimited drug testing, so that is not an issue, and for two years everybody agreed that the proceeds would be split 50/50. Now there’s an excuse and he doesn’t want to split it 50/50 so we say ‘OK, here’s the deal. Let’s make it 45/45 to each fighter and then 10 percent, the missing 10 percent goes to the winner.’ What did he [Mayweather] say? ‘Take the test!’ Or ‘I don’t want to get hurt.’ ”
Goebbels, who worked closely with Adolf Hitler, died in 1945, committing suicide shortly after Hitler did the same.
More from the Arum interview can be found at:
David P. Greisman is a member of the Boxing Writers Association of America. Follow David on Twitter at twitter.com/fightingwords2 or on Facebook at facebook.com/fightingwordsboxing, or send questions and comments to fightingwords1@gmail.com
