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Was Steven Luevano an Arum sleeper agent?
Stay with me here.
During the fight this idea dawned on me almost instantly. I don't know about any of you, but I've never been the least bit impressed with Luevano. At all.
Yet the guy's been WBO champ for literally years now. I "aksed" myself during the fight why the guy has basically fought in the shadows of the FW division for so long. Arum is not the type to babysit a fighter who's not an attraction and is not financially beneficial to him.
Arum usually keeps a guy on his roster for one of 2 reasons. Either to build him up and eventually cash him out (Cotto, Pac, Tony, Oscar) or a sleeper agent to use him as a stepping stone for one of his cash cows.
Now I propose to you, that Luevano was the latter. Luevano is a Mexican fighter from La Puente that had no fans, had no prospects of ever making Arum any money, was not very good, and was clearly a "soft" champion. After watching the parallel tracks that he and Juanma have been on and then watching that fight last night it made sense to me. Luevano was sacrificed to Juanma by Arum.
Luevano was basically groomed to be a paper champ, protected by Arum and his relationship with the WBO to stay champ for as long as needed to be, and then BAM, when one of Arum's "blue chippers" needed to have a fight where he would become a "champion", you call up Luevano and sacrifice him.
Luevano need not be aware of any of this. As far as he's concerned he really is a champ. But Arum's been around the game long enough to know that Luevano was not a real threat. He's the perfect foil too in that he's Mexican (rivalry purposes) and is not a big puncher.
I wouldn't have thought about any of this last night were it not for Max Kellerman's continual insistence that Arum and the Juanma camp were expecting Luevano to be "an old 27".
Kellerman started the fight with that statement and then made subsequent statements that were similar that all but admitted that Luevano was being fed to Juanma and had no chance in the fight.
I know it sounds a bit strange, but I'm curious to see what other fighters Arum has as "champs" in his stable that don't really deserve that title. Perhaps they will be used in the future to further the career of another of his blue chippers.
What do you guys think?
During the fight this idea dawned on me almost instantly. I don't know about any of you, but I've never been the least bit impressed with Luevano. At all.
Yet the guy's been WBO champ for literally years now. I "aksed" myself during the fight why the guy has basically fought in the shadows of the FW division for so long. Arum is not the type to babysit a fighter who's not an attraction and is not financially beneficial to him.
Arum usually keeps a guy on his roster for one of 2 reasons. Either to build him up and eventually cash him out (Cotto, Pac, Tony, Oscar) or a sleeper agent to use him as a stepping stone for one of his cash cows.
Now I propose to you, that Luevano was the latter. Luevano is a Mexican fighter from La Puente that had no fans, had no prospects of ever making Arum any money, was not very good, and was clearly a "soft" champion. After watching the parallel tracks that he and Juanma have been on and then watching that fight last night it made sense to me. Luevano was sacrificed to Juanma by Arum.
Luevano was basically groomed to be a paper champ, protected by Arum and his relationship with the WBO to stay champ for as long as needed to be, and then BAM, when one of Arum's "blue chippers" needed to have a fight where he would become a "champion", you call up Luevano and sacrifice him.
Luevano need not be aware of any of this. As far as he's concerned he really is a champ. But Arum's been around the game long enough to know that Luevano was not a real threat. He's the perfect foil too in that he's Mexican (rivalry purposes) and is not a big puncher.
I wouldn't have thought about any of this last night were it not for Max Kellerman's continual insistence that Arum and the Juanma camp were expecting Luevano to be "an old 27".
Kellerman started the fight with that statement and then made subsequent statements that were similar that all but admitted that Luevano was being fed to Juanma and had no chance in the fight.
I know it sounds a bit strange, but I'm curious to see what other fighters Arum has as "champs" in his stable that don't really deserve that title. Perhaps they will be used in the future to further the career of another of his blue chippers.
What do you guys think?
@ the bold.
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