By Jake Donovan
Say what you want about Hall of Fame promoter Bob Arum. What you can never accuse him of, is biting his tongue or shilling on behalf of another entity, even in the presence of flattery.
A press conference was held on Wednesday afternoon ahead the third showdown between Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez – which takes place this Saturday at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. Among its highlights was the reminder of this weekend marking the first time in 2011 that HBO PPV and Top Rank collaborate for a major event.
By the time the year comes to a close, Top Rank will have provided four major PPV shows – two each from Pacquiao and Miguel Cotto.
Pacquiao’s last ring appearance came this past May, in his whitewash of Shane Mosley that proved to be a bust in the ring but a financial blockbuster at the box office. His next – and last – fight of 2011 comes this weekend against Marquez.
Cotto last appeared in a ring in March, when he stopped Ricardo Mayorga in the 12th round of their pay-per-view headliner which also fared well at the box office, relative to the show’s budget. The Puerto Rican superstar is slated to return to the ring on December 3, when he squares off against despised and disgraced rival Antonio Margarito.
The missing element from the previous bouts for Pacquiao and Cotto this year was the involvement of HBO. It was instead rival network Showtime who served as chief distributor and producer for both of the aforementioned events, prompting a major shakeup at HBO, including the forced resignation of Ross Greenburg.
Cotto had previously appeared on Showtime (though not since December ’06), but for the majority of his career has been a fixture on HBO. That changed when HBO neglected to greenlight a proposed showdown with Ricardo Mayorga, instead giving the date to lineal middleweight champion Sergio Martinez in a title defense against Sergiy Dzinziruk.
The move – along with HBO’s reluctance to clear space for unbeaten lightweight Brandon Rios – infuriated Arum, who has always marched to the beat of his own drum. When the opportunity came to shop for a home for Pacquiao-Mosley, it was assumed that the fight would be distributed by HBO, who had served as distributor for every pay-per-view event headlined by the Filipino superstar.
Arum’s decision to instead bring Pacquiao – along with Cotto and Rios – across the street to Showtime proved to be a game changer on many levels. Showtime’s coverage of Pacquiao-Mosley included cross-promotion on sister network CBS during its coverage of NCAA’s March Madness college basketball tournament.
The bout marked one-and-done for Pacquiao’s relationship with Showtime, though through no fault of anyone. HBO had finally realized the flaws in its outdated presentation of its biggest events and have since reinvented its game.
In doing so, the self-proclaimed Network of Champions was able to present a promotional package enticing enough to prompt Top Rank to bring back home its biggest guns.
“After a one-time hiatus this past spring, we are back with HBO PPV, who is distributing this fight,” Arum stated at Wednesday’s presser, the last time Pacquiao and Marquez appear in public before Friday’s weigh-in. “One thing we did is shake things up, because HBO is now promoting this event on platforms never used before. Utilizing sister companies like CNN, they’ve done a terrific job in this new world and new technology of promoting this event.”
Along with Pacquiao-Marquez III, HBO also won the right to distribute and produce the highly anticpated grudge rematch between bitter rivals Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito, which airs live from Madison Square Garden on December 3.
The one-two punch provides HBO with a strong end to a 2011 season that had struggled mightily prior to the return of Floyd Mayweather this past September.
Sandwiched in between pay-per-view headliners involving Mayweather and Pacquiao was the disastrous October 15 event, topped by Chad Dawson’s controversially ruled 2nd round knockout of Bernard Hopkins. The show was a bomb at the box office and in the ring, with neither HBO nor Golden Boy Promotions bothering to reveal the final numbers, other than to express grave disappointment.
With Top Rank’s army back in town, HBO is once again all smiles in envisioning a successful – and lucrative – close to the year.
“We’re getting close to the end of the year, and there’s no better way to highlight and celebrate a year than with a fight of this magnitude and this caliber,” Taffet stated during Wednesday’s press conference. These two gentlemen have fought to a virtual standstill for the past 24 rounds. To be able to see the conclusion of a thrilling trilogy is just an honor for us.”
Prior to praising the bout, Taffet – on behalf of the HBO family – extended his appreciation to Arum for allowing the network back into the fold.
“Thank you for giving us the opportunity to work with you and with Manny’s team again.”
Not even a series of compliments, however, was enough to hold back Arum from speaking his mind.
In between thank yous and sales pitches came Taffet’s announcement that HBO will rebroadcast its “Thrilla in Manila” documentary on Thursday, in honor of the late Joe Frazier who passed away on Monday evening.
The documentary is told from the perspective of Frazier, and first aired as a tribute to what is regarded as the greatest heavyweight title fight of all time, in which both fighters beat the hell out of each other for 14 rounds before Frazier was forced by head trainer Eddie Futch to retire on his stool.
It also holds a special place in the hearts of those at HBO, as it was the first offered by the network to air via satellite.
Despite Taffet’s announcement coming just after celebrating the reunion with Top Rank, Arum elected to chime in with his own thoughts on the segment. The moment came despite the request of his own son-in-law to just shut up and smile, causing an awkward pause among the press and fans on hand for the pre-fight presser.
“Todd deBouf (Top Rank president and Arum’s son-in-law) tells me I should learn when to keep my mouth shut, but I’m 80 years old so that’s a hard lesson for me to learn at this point. I was a great friend of Joe Frazier. I admired him greatly, working with him for a lot of his fights as well as fights for his son Marvis and really had a great admiration for him – a terrific man and a great fighter.
“But that documentary that Mark was talking about – I found to be disgusting. It was designed to demean one of my great heroes, Muhammad Ali. It is chock full of inaccuracies. It is testimony from people who weren’t even there. I was there, I’m 80 years old and I know what took place. It was an unfair attack on Muhammad Ali.”
Even at the height of his rant, Arum still found a way to encourage viewership without changing his stance.
“You can watch it, but don’t believe a word that is said on it.”
Jake Donovan is the Managing Editor of Boxingscene.com. Follow Jake on Twitter at twitter.com/JakeNDaBox or submit questions/comments to JakeNDaBox@gmail.com.
