By Mark Vester
During a recent interview with Doug Krikorian of the Long Beach Press-Telegram , promoter Bob Arum of Top Rank took some serious shots at mixed martial arts, Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather, Jr.
He managed to give some praise to the UFC as far as their marketing and how they spend their ad dollars, but was very critical of the product, how their fighters are treated and the skill level of MMA athletes.
"Their presentation and promotion is very good and they spend millions and millions of dollars on advertising," Arum said. "And their product stinks. It's just awful. Most of their participants come from wrestling, or karate backgrounds, and are just terrible boxers.
"The guys who promote this stuff are able to spend so much money on advertising because they don't pay their fighters anything. Here they had a big pay-per-view show last week in which they had more than a million buys and took in around 20 million dollars. And I doubt they spent more than a million dollars on all the participants on the program.
"They have a complete monopoly, and have choked off all the competition, and their fighters have to take what they give them. In boxing, we have a totally different model, different pay scale. We give 90 percent of the money from a promotion to the fighters"
Arum does not blame the UFC and mixed martial arts for the decline in boxing. He blames fighters like Oscar De La Hoya, Floyd Mayweather and Winky Wright, fighters who Arum says are more concerned with making a dollar instead of fighting.
"What's killing boxing are the so-called businessmen fighters who leave the ring looking the same way as they did when they entered it," says Arum. "Just look at the recent Floyd Mayweather-Oscar De La Hoya fight. All that publicity about how their fight was going to save boxing, and what happened? They didn't fight. They pranced around the ring for 12 rounds not taking any chances. That wasn't a fight. That was a ballet.
"Boxing needs fighters who fight, not guys like Mayweather and De La Hoya and Winky Wright who are more concerned about pay days and avoiding punches. What you need to bring fans back to boxing are fighters with a search-and- destroy attitude, fighters like Miguel Cotto and and Kelly Pavlik," says Arum.
He also noted that networks like HBO and Showtime have to take some of the blame as well.
"Our presentation has sucked," Arum said. "For 30 years now, we've become like a studio sport because of the insistence of the TV networks like HBO and Showtime and ESPN not to play loud music between rounds because it would interfere with the priceless words being uttered by their announcers."
The debate is going strong as to what would happen if a top boxer was thrown in the ring with a top mixed martial artist. According to Arum, a massacre would take place if a boxer was able to fight with four-ounce gloves.
"You gotta be kidding me!" Arum said. "We'd fight them on land, we'd fight them on the sea, we'd fight them in the air, we'd fight them anyplace. They use four-ounce gloves. Can you imagine what would happen if you allow our top guys to use four-ounce gloves? It would be a massacre.
"Their guys can't take a punch. They're wrestlers not accustomed to getting hit on the chin. Look what happened last week when their so-called champion (Chuck Liddell) got knocked out in less than a round. And that by a guy who can't even box well.
"There is no doubt we have a better product. We just have to present it better. And our top fighters have to be committed to fighting in an entertaining manner."
Send News Tips and Comments To Mark Vester @ boxingscene@hotmail.com