Q&A With Bob Arum
GRAPEVINE, Texas — Bob Arum, is showing no signs of slowing down.
Although he’s in Arlington, Tex., for Saturday night’s Manny Pacquaio vs. Joshua Clottey (Pacman next!) WBO welterweight (147 pounds) mega fight at The Dallas Cowboys’ Stadium, the 78-year-old CEO of Top Rank Promotions still hand his hands in other milestone projects and is working out deals from afar and abroad.
Arum already has secured a WBA junior middleweight (154 pounds) title defense for Yuri Foreman against former world champion, Miguel Cotto, for June 5 at The Yankees’ Stadium in New York, to be televised on HBO.
On the Foreman-Cotto undercard, Arum will feature Anthony Peterson of Washington, D.C., who knocked out Juan Ramon Cruz in the third round on Friday night at the Gaylord Texan Hotel’s Texas Ballroom, against Saturday night’s winner of a WBC lightweight (135 pounds) clash between Humberto Soto and David Diaz.
Top Rank won a purse bid on earlier this month to match IBF champion, Cristobal Cruz, and, challenger, Orlando Salido, in a clash of veteran, Mexican, featherweights (126 pounds) to further tighten its grip on a division of talented fighters.
Arum wants to eventually match Cuban-born, WBA featherweight king, Yuriorkis Gamboa, of Miami, against southpaw, WBO titlist, Juan Manuel Lopez, of Puerto Rico — each of whom Top Rank promotes.
Lopez and challenger Bernabe Concepcion are slated to fight on July 10 in Puerto Rico, and Gamboa is set to make the third defense of his crown against Argentinian Jonathan Victor Barros on March 27 at The Sporthalle in Alsterdorf, Hamburg, Germany.
If Gamboa wins, Arum said he hopes to match him against Celestino Caballero. Caballero is expected to rise from super bantamweight (122 pounds), where he holds the IBF and WBA belts, for an April 10, HBO-televised, featherweight clash with Indonesia’s Daud Yordan.
In addition, Edwin Valero — who has vacated the WBC lightweight belt that Soto and Diaz are fighting for — could meet Anthony Peterson’s brother,Lamont Peterson, in a junior welterweight (140 pounds) matchup as a potential doubleheader on the Gamboa-Caballero undercard.
Arum told FanHouse what else he’s working on and also said that he hasn’t given up on a Floyd Mayweather
Mayweahter-Manny Pacquaio mega fight.
FanHouse: What would it take make a mega fight between Floyd Mayweather
Mayweahter should he defeat Shane Mosley, and, Manny Pacquaio if he beats Joshua Clottey (Pacman next!)?
Bob Arum: First of all, what it would take is that Pacquaio and Mayweather
Mayweahter would both have to win. Secondly, we’d have to sit down without any nonsense, and do the fight in a place that makes the most sense, which I believe is The Dallas Cowboys’ Stadium.
We could make a real statement for boxing, and we’d set it up like the NBA All-Star game for over a hundred thousand people. That’s what we should do. If he starts the nonsense, ‘No, he’s not going to Texas,’ or, starts this nonsense about drug testing, I’m not going to talk to him. The deal’s off.
If he wants any particular drug testing, that’s an issue that should be addressed by the commission in the state the the bout is held. He is free to petition and ask for any kind of testing that he wishes. But it’s something that is to be decided by a lawfully appointed state commission.
Not by one fighter dictating to the other his views on what constitutes adequate testing. That’s all commission’s issue. It’s not a promoter’s issue, that’s not another fighter’s issue, it’s a commission issue. All of that has to be dealt with by the applicable state commission.
Promoters screw up enough in promoting a fight that they don’t have to be involved in those kinds of issues.
FH: Why did you select Joshua Clottey (Pacman next!) and what makes him a viable opponent?
Arum: Any time the little guy goes against the big, stronger guy, who has been in with everybody and beat Zab Judah, that’s a tough fight. Remember, it’s always going to be David against Goliath, as long as Pacquaio is fighting welterweights and bigger guys. It’s a real test.
Now if you put him in with Paulie Malignaggi, everybody would say, ‘Who are you kidding, it’s just to keep him busy.’ I mean, I don’t mean to denegrate Malignaggi, but you know what I mean? It’s a guy who can’t really hurt him or really punch.
He’s a good boxer. We were talking about at one point putting him in against Malignaggi, but that wouldn’t have worked.
I couldn’t say with any kind of degree or candor that the fight is a difficult fight, and the opponent can really test Pacquaio.
FH: If Shane Mosley beats Floyd Mayweather
Mayweahter, and if Pacquaio wins, how viable is that fight?
Arum: I think, very viable. I personally am a big admirer of Shane, and I know that Shane isn’t going to listen to Richard Schaefer and Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy on any of those details. Shane understands boxing more than they do.
And after we get by the money issue, which I’m will be resolved, the fight will happen. And I would think that it would be at The Dallas Cowboys’ Stadium. That makes the most sense.
FH: I understand that Miguel Cotto and Yuri Foreman have agreed in principal but have not signed?
Arum: Yes, for The Yankees’ Stadium. They haven’t signed, but we have been working on this. The terms have all been agreed on. They’re my fighters. Once they agree on terms, we’ll get the contracts to them, and the contracts will be signed before the first press conference.
We hope to have a press conference on March 24 or March 25 in Tampa. It will be the first time in boxing that we have a pre-conference conference, which we call spring training. It will be a press conference in Tampa, where the Yankees are based.
But it’s not going to really count until we have the official press conference in Yankees’ Stadium once the season starts.
FH: Can you discuss where you are with Edwin Valero and Lamont Peterson?
Arum: I don’t think that there are any considerations, other than the fact that Valero has to get his U.S. Visa and get into this country, which I believe is happening. And then, we have to figure out where to put the fight, because the only state where Valero is licensed now is Texas.
But I understand from Nevada that he would be licensed in Nevada, and I will certainly sit down with the boxing commission in washington, D.C., to see what their feeling is.
We have to have our neurosurgeon explain to them that if you look at Valero’s MRI, that it’s totally clear from what happened years ago [blood clot in his brain from a motorcycle accident.] And as long as there’s no trace of it, it shouldn’t disqualify him.
Nevada originally said that it did disqualify him, but now, they’ve changed the rule through legislation. A fighter who used to have a detatched retina could never fight, but then, they changed it to say that if it was re-attached, and it was perfect, and he tested positively, then he was allowed to fight.
FH: If everything works out the way you would like, in a timely fashion, where and when would you like Valero-Peterson to take place?
Arum: The ideal place for it would be Washington, D.C., but we’ll have to see. And, as far as when, probably in July.
FH: Can you talk about Yuriorkis Gamboa and Juan Manuel Lopez for a minute?
Arum: JuanMa is going to fight Bernabe Concepcion, and Gamboa is going to fight John Victor Barros, and then, we’ll see. One at a time.
FH: Are you happy with the fact that you have been having so much success promotin your own fighters against each other in-house?
Arum: I believe that it helps me to build a brand, which is why the UFC has been so successful. Because they essentially do these events with their own fighters. Doing it with your own fighters, you can promote it the way you believe that it should be promoted and you can do it with a minimum of stress.
It’s not always possible, and you sometimes have use fighters with other promoters, and we’re prepared to do that. But it’s certainly easier when you promote two fighters whom you’re promoting.
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