By Ryan Burton
BoxingScene.com and a small group of members of the media caught up with Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum to get his take on a variety of topics. One of which was Golden Boy Promotions CEO Oscar De La Hoya's recent proclamation that 2016 was a terrible year for boxing.
In an interview with Yahoo Sports, De La Hoya tabbed 2016 as potentially being the worst year in the history of the sport.
“I think 2016 should go down as one of the worst years in boxing history, maybe the worst,” De La Hoya said to Kevin Iole of Yahoo Sports.
De La Hoya also expressed his concerns regarding the obvious lack of household names in today's landscape.
"Our job as promoters is to get these guys the exposure they need. I’ll be honest, you don’t see fighters being promoted like we’d gotten used to seeing. When [Top Rank’s] Bob Arum promotes someone, you know it. When I promote Canelo, you know it. There is talent out there, but promoters need to step up to the plate and promote their fighters. We need to go to the highest mountain and shout about all these guys and what they bring to [the table],” De La Hoya said.
Arum disagrees with his position. He feels the year is ending strong with some very good fights - but also made it very clear that 2016 would have been a great year for everyone if Canelo would have followed through with his vow to face middleweight king Gennady 'GGG' Golovkin in the fall.
After knocking out Amir Khan at the T-Mobile Arena in May, Canelo invited Golovkin into the ring and told Triple G that he was more than willing to fight him in the fall.
That scenario never came through. Canelo would vacate his middleweight title and drop down to 154-pounds to challenge Liam Smith for the WBO belt in September.
"Well it was a terrible year for boxing because [De La Hoya's] number one fighter - who I think is a terrific fighter - Canelo Alvarez, didn't do what he said he was going to do and fight Gennady Golovkin. If Canelo had fought Golovkin instead of that guy from England that nobody had heard of, people would say what a great year it was for boxing," Arum said.
"It is closing pretty good. Lomachenko-Walters is a hell of a fight and that is coming two days after Thanksgiving. We are going to be announcing the Terence Crawford versus (John) Molina fight. That is another great fight so it is not over till it is over and there are still two months left in the year."
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