Comments Thread For: Arum Explains The Difference in Builing Gamboa's Base

[mathed]

hes an idiot. he NEVER puts Gamboa on Pacquiao undercards thats the way to go if he wants him to apeal to other fans aside from cubans so his style is exciting he can reach to the casual fan.instead he puts rigon whos the least exciting of the 3.

I agree totally, all future stars premiered on PPV undercards before they blew up. Chavez Jr, Canelo are just a few recent examples that were featured on several PPV's before they headlined.....both are huge.

[gatorDelux]

bob arums logic is so ****ed up

boxing could do better with a better promoter

[Light_Speed]

To all you sensitive ones, Arum hit the nail right on the head. It may be a sad reality, but it is a reality to say the least! To defect from Cuba you needed money and like in the good ole USA and pretty much over 72% plus of the world, there are color barriers in every culture. Most cultures ignorantly thinking white is of supremacy and usually the color that makes the money.

Argue all you want, cry all you want, but it's the truth. That is why I commend Black- Cuban The Kid Chocolate Peter Quillin. He was raised by his black american mother and yet cherishes his Cuban ancestry. He is learning Spanish, has visited Cuba and has improved his relationship with his once estranged Cuban born father. He wears the Cuban flag usually in his fights and is very pro Cubano although it does not help market him at all!

Off topic but Quillin looks like a homeless dude in your avatar.

Yeah, it has to do with having a great fighter with no ethnic base, which is traditionally how you market a fighter in America. DiBella has the same problem with Martinez. Talented, exciting, good looking guy, but he has no ethnic base to call on for support like Puerto Ricans/Mexican/Polish/Irish, ect fighters in America do because he's Argentine.

Spot on. These guys need to reach out to the mainstream american audience.

[537Bwouaye]

your an idiot,There are alot of cubans in florida.They just dont support
boxing for sum reason.

For some reason, you're a dumb complexed Mexican.

most cubans living outside of Cuba are located in south Florida, which is like 1M of them.. how the *** u goin to build an ethnicity fanbase based on such a small population?? there's +12M cubans in Cuba (who can't contribute to the fanbase) and only like 2M around the world.. so even if 1/10 of them would be interested in boxing (which would be the highest ratio ever) it would still be too small. Cubans in Miami like boxing more than most nations and support cuban boxers most than most nations, proportionally, there's just not enough of them.

[edgarg]

I'm not sure I agree with this one. There are a lot, if not most, of Cubans and Cuban-Americans who are not white in Miami/Florida... Cubans are a beautiful people who are widely diversed; and it almost seems like Arum is insinuating that the Cubans don't support their fighters because they are black (all the Cuban fighters Arum mentioned are black). If that's the case, I would have to disagree. Celia Cruz was black and everybody loved her. It didn't matter if you were Mexican, Cuban, or Argentine, everybody loved Celia!!!

He's not insiniating anything, he's telling it how it is. Facts. It's YOU who are insinuating that Arum somehow doesn't know his job....but YOU do.

[edgarg]

this is wrong. cubans have domunated and relish boxing wether in the united states or over there in cuba.arum is just collecting huge hidden money from the gamboa fights.he thinks gamboa owes him something because top rank played a huge role in gamboa's immigration status.

You're crazy.

[edgarg]

all arum's saying is that boxing doesn't really appeal to cuban americans.... sounds about right since there's no such thing as a cuban fan base for boxing....

These imbecile racist haters can't resist attacking someone who doesn't even know or care if they exist.....which they barely do.

[vicmatic1]

y not build a fan base in miami?

[CubanGuyNYC]

Some findings and statistics from the Pew Hispanic Center (based on the 2004 American Community Survey):

- "Compared with the rest of the Hispanic population in the United States, Cubans are older, have a higher level of education, higher median household income and higher rate of home ownership..."

- 1,448,684 Cubans residing in the U.S. (912,686 foreign born)

- Cubans comprise 4% of the total Hispanic population of the U.S.

- 68% of U.S. Cubans live in Florida (about 990,000 people)

Without boring anyone too much with facts and figures, I can say that Arum is at least partially right in his statements. The Cubans that left the island after Castro took power in 1959 were mostly educated professionals from middle to upper-middle class backgrounds. (There are many stories of doctors and lawyers washing dishes upon arrival in the U.S.) These people and their children (many American born) don't identify with their heritage as much as many other Hispanics.

The potential Cuban fan-base in the U.S. is small to begin with. The eleven million Cubans on the island are trapped by the communist dictatorship, so they're a non-factor when it comes to promoting fights. You wouldn't expect to see too many well-off Cubanos waving Cuban flags at a boxing match, no more than you'd expect to see wealthy Brits (for instance) waving the Union Jack. There's also the fact that many Cubans feel (wrongfully, IMO) that cheering a Cuban defector is somehow supporting Castro.

Cuban fighters, for the foreseeable future, are going to have to rely on their own general marketability. A talent like Yuriorkis Gamboa would have no problem; his brand of excitement appeals to everyone.

[TheMexHurricane]

Hot dang! I swear I love this freakin' Gamboa kid!!!!!!!!!!!
Arriba los Latinos!!!!!!!