Bob Arum Takes Another Dip Into The Heavyweight Pond

Published

7 years ago

August 15, 2017

The secret of Bob Arum’s incredible longevity in boxing, a voracious, cannibalistic sport that tends to devour its young and weak and casually gnaw on the remnants of its old and infirm, is the 85-year-old’s ability to recognize and take advantage of coming changes before they happen, almost before anyone else knows those changes are needed.

It is that remarkable sense of intuition, perhaps more than anything else, that has enabled Arum – a Harvard Law School graduate and former member of U.S. Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s Justice Department in the 1960s – to outsmart and outlast a couple of generations of promotional competitors who made the mistake of assuming this old, or at least aging, dog was incapable of learning new tricks.

“Everybody looks for the easy money and the easy way out, including myself,” the Top Rank founder and chairman said in the spring of 2007, when he still was a relatively spry pup of 75. “But I find it doesn’t work anymore. You have to fish where the fish are.”

This Saturday night, with the pond in Lincoln, Neb., stocked with trout eager to be hooked by another in-state appearance by Nebraska’s own Terence Crawford, that particular bit of Arumesque sagacity again will be certified. Crawford (31-0, 22 KOs), the WBC and WBO super lightweight champion, will attempt to fully unify the 140-pound title against IBF and WBA ruler Julius Indongo (22-0, 11 KOs), and he figures to do so before a raucous, pro-Crawford sellout crowd of 15,500 in the Pinnacle Bank Arena. That the favored Crawford figures to make an even stronger case for himself as a superstar attraction with a TV audience in the millions, thanks to the scheduled 12-round bout being shown on basic-cable ESPN instead of HBO, is another testament to Arum’s master plan of going back to the future. From 1980 to ’95, 767 of the 2,000-plus fight cards staged by Arum’s company were televised via Top Rank Boxing on ESPN, which served to make any number of his client-fighters primed and ready to graduate to premium-cable and pay-per-view.

But it is the presence of a non-televised, eight-round heavyweight bout on the undercard that signals another potentially bold move into a different but still somehow familiar direction by Arum, whose promotional career began with arguably the greatest of all heavyweights, Muhammad Ali, and featured a nice run with comebacking elder statesman George Foreman. While he has taken occasional fliers on other heavyweights (Ray Mercer, Hasim Rahman), Arum otherwise has been mostly known for his showcasing of fighters in lower weight classes (Sugar Ray Leonard, Manny Pacquiao, Thomas Hearns, Floyd Mayweather Jr., Marvelous Marvin Hagler, Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto and Michael Carbajal, among others). In recent years, the Top Rank lineup has been primarily dotted with Hispanic fighters, an acknowledgment of Arum’s belief that that fan base is the deepest and most ardent in boxing.

No one is ready to pronounce the return to action, after a 20-month period of inactivity, of Arum’s recent signee, Bryant Jennings, as a cannonball splash into the deep end of the heavyweight pool by a promoter who occasionally makes impetuous statements but does virtually nothing else without first assessing the risk-reward factor and possible down-the-road ramifications. Indeed, Arum isn’t even Jennings’ sole promoter; the 32-year-old Philadelphian, who is coming off two consecutive losses in addition to the long layoff, is co-promoted by Antonio Leonard. But should Jennings (19-2, 10 KOs) look good in dispatching journeyman Daniel Martz (15-4-1, 12 KOs), and follows that up with another tuneup victory in November or December … well, who knows? Arum also co-promotes (with Dean Lonergan and David Higgins of Duco Events) Joseph Parker (23-0, 18 KOs), the New Zealander who defends his WBO belt against Hughie Fury (20-0, 10 KOs) on Sept. 23 in Manchester, England.

It is no great stretch of the imagination to foresee a title bout between Parker and a resuscitated Jennings in the spring of 2018, or possibly even a rematch between Parker and Andy Ruiz Jr. (29-1, 19 KOs), an American of Mexican descent and third member of Top Rank’s heavyweight troika who lost a majority decision for the vacant WBO crown on Dec. 10, 2016.

“You would think so,” Jennings said of the possibility that a matchup of he and Parker could be done with minimum muss and fuss, barring the stubbing of a toe by either somewhere along the way. “Making that fight, to me, is very possible. Don’t be surprised if you see that fight in the next six months to a year.”

Arum, who sounded a bit under the weather during a telephone conversation last weekend, said between coughs that a Parker-Jennings pairing is or fairly soon could be on the drawing board.

“We were doing a fight in New York and Antonio and James Prince (who co-manages Jennings along with attorney Josh Dubin) brought Jennings to see me,” Arum related. “I really took a liking to him. He’s a very intelligent guy, a clean-living guy. We think that if he goes back on the board, he can develop into a real threat. There’s four titles out there. We can make a run with Jennings in the short term for one of those titles.

“Of course, for (Parker-Jennings) to happen, Parker has to get past Hughie Fury. But if we’re successful with Parker, and successful with Bryant, I would match them in the spring on ESPN.”

One has to wonder if Top Rank’s expanded foray back into the big-boy weight class (it should be noted that TR has promoted Ruiz for the duration of his eight-year pro career) owes, at least in part, to the Aug. 2 retirement announcement by 41-year-old Wladimir Klitschko, who joins older sibling Vitali on the sideline after 14 nearly unbroken years of their vise grip on the division. When Wlad was upset on a unanimous decision against Tyson Fury (Hughie’s older brother) to end his second title reign, which had lasted a decade, on Nov. 28, 2015, one smart-alecky boxing writer (uh, that would be me) suggested that the barbarians no longer were pounding in frustration upon the gate, they had at last broken through to the throne room.

Sometimes palaces are just like an ordinary Joe’s apartment in that a new look can be invigorating, even if it involves nothing more than moving the same furniture around. With the Klitschkos gone – the suspicion here is that they’ll be more appreciated as time goes by – the immediate effect is to provide a jolt of energy and hope to a heavyweight division that always had been characterized as the locomotive that powered boxing’s train.

“Maybe,” Arum said when asked if the new heavyweight reality will be better than the one just past, and particularly for Top Rank. “It depends on the fighters we have. We’re not adverse to promoting heavyweights.

“The center has moved from Europe and Germany with the Klitschkos to around the world – London with Anthony Joshua and into the United States and other English-speaking countries, like New Zealand. It’s becoming more relevant and a lot easier to sell in those countries. There’s also the difference in time. An English fighter like Joshua – who’s still fighting exclusively in Europe, obviously, although he’s supposed to do some fights here in the U.S. – is more accessible because the language is the same and the English have a tradition of accommodating American television.

“It’s good to have some Americans out there (most notably WBC champion Deontay Wilder, but also Jennings, rising prospect Jarrell “Big Baby” Miller and several possibly recycled Klitschko victims). But, obviously, our best American (potential) heavyweights are playing in the NFL and the NBA.”

Antonio Leonard, Jennings’ co-promoter, understands why Arum could view the onetime high school football star as a lottery ticket that just might pay off. Leonard considers the heavyweight division to now be “wide-open,” and, well, you can’t win if you don’t play.

“It was a collaboration with all of them,” he said of Top Rank’s decision to climb aboard the Jennings bandwagon, a consensus that involved not only Arum but TR president Todd duBoef, executive Carl Moretti and matchmaker Bruce Trampler. “With as little experience as he had (17 amateur bouts and 19 in the pros), Bryant was able to go the distance with (Wladimir) Klitschko and give a good account of himself. And Klitschko was on the verge of knocking Joshua out. That tells me Joshua can be beaten. They all can. I don’t see any reason why Bryant can’t win twice before the year is out. He’s always in shape. He’s a hell of an athlete, maybe the best athlete in the division.”

And if the current heavyweight experiment flops? Make no mistake, Arum, who was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 1999, has taken the requisite steps to ensure that the company he founded in 1973 survives in the long term. He has stayed ahead of the technological curve, for one thing (the Jennings-Martz bout will be streamed live via the Top Rank app) and he has delegated authority as the need arose to trusted and capable lieutenants, the failure to do so being a root cause for the decaying empire of his longtime arch-rival, Don King, whose rise and fall was marked by seat-of-the-pants immediacy. Arum still has an enemies’ list – more recent irritants include Al Haymon and Richard Schaefer, and he remains insistent that fighters who are their own promoters serve neither their athletic nor business best-interests – but he has done it his way throughout a now-51-year promotional journey (the first fight he staged was Ali’s wide, 15-round heavyweight title defense against rugged challenger George Chuvalo on March 29, 1966, in Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens).

Arum is still having fun re-inventing the wheel. When some of his mainstays exited their respective primes or retired, and when De La Hoya and Mayweather bolted, he simply plugged in a Cotto or a Pacquiao and kept rolling. If that wheel that keeps going round and round again has come around to another go with heavyweights, so be it. It won’t – can’t — be like the good old days with the young Ali and the ancient Foreman, but so what?

The future always has belonged to the adventurous, even if the adventurer is an octogenarian.

Check out more boxing news on video at The Boxing Channel.

To comment on this article at The Fight Forum, CLICK HERE.

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Bernard Fernandez

Up Next

Indongo May Provide A Scary Moment Against Crawford, But That’s It

Don't Miss

Luis Nery Demolishes Long-Reigning Bantamweight Champ Yamanaka

Skylar Lacy Blocked for Lamar Jackson before Making his Mark in Boxing

Published

2 days ago

January 19, 2025

Arne K. Lang

Skylar-Lacy-Blocked-for-Lamar-Jackson-Before-Making-his-Mark-in-Boxing

Skylar Lacy, a six-foot-seven heavyweight, returns to the ring on Sunday, Feb. 2, opposing Brandon Moore on a card in Flint, Michigan, airing worldwide on DAZN.

As this is being written, the bookmakers hadn’t yet posted a line on the bout, but one couldn’t be accused of false coloring by calling the 10-round contest a 50/50 fight. And if his frustrating history is any guide, Lacy will have another draw appended to his record or come out on the wrong side of a split decision.

This should not be construed as a tip to wager on Moore. “Close fights just don’t seem to go my way,” says the boxer who played alongside future multi-year NFL MVP Lamar Jackson at the University of Louisville.

A 2021 National Golden Gloves champion, Skylar Lacy came up short in his final amateur bout, losing a split decision to future U.S. Olympian Joshua Edwards. His last Team Combat League assignment resulted in another loss by split decision and he was held to a draw in both instances when stepping up in class as a pro. “In my mind, I’m still undefeated,” says Lacy (8-0-2, 6 KOs). “No one has ever kicked my ass.”

Lacy was the B-side in both of those draws, the first coming in a 6-rounder against Top Rank fighter Antonio Mireles on a Top Rank show in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, and the second in an 8-rounder against George Arias, a Lou DiBella fighter on a DiBella-promoted card in Philadelphia.

Lacy had the Mireles fight in hand when he faded in the homestretch. The altitude was a factor. Lake Tahoe, Nevada (officially Stateline) sits 6,225 feet above sea level. The fight with Arias took an opposite tack. Lacy came on strong after a slow start to stave off defeat.

Skylar will be the B-side once again in Michigan. The card’s promoter, former world title challenger Dmitriy Salita, inked Brandon Moore (16-1, 10 KOs) in January. “A capable American heavyweight with charisma, athleticism and skills is rare in today’s day and age. Brandon has got all these ingredients…”, said Salita in the press release announcing the signing. (Salita has an option on Skylar Lacy’s next pro fight in the event that Skylar should win, but the promoter has a larger investment in Moore who was previously signed to Top Rank, a multi-fight deal that evaporated after only one fight.)

Both Lacy and Moore excelled in other sports. The six-foot-six Moore was an outstanding basketball player in high school in Fort Lauderdale and at the NAIA level in college. Lacy was an all-state football lineman in Indiana before going on to the University of Louisville where he started as an offensive guard as a redshirt sophomore, blocking for freshman phenom Lamar Jackson. “Lamar was hard-working and humble,” says Lacy about the player who is now one of the world’s highest-paid professional athletes.

When Lacy committed to Louisville, the head coach was Charlie Strong who went on to become the head coach at the University of Texas. Lacy was never comfortable with Strong’s successor Bobby Petrino and transferred to San Jose State. Having earned his degree in only three years (a BA in communications) he was eligible immediately but never played a down because of injuries.

Returning to Indianapolis where he was raised by his truck dispatcher father, a single parent, Lacy gravitated to Pat McPherson’s IBG (Indy Boxing and Grappling) Gym on the city’s east side where he was the rare college graduate pounding the bags alongside at-risk kids from the city’s poorer neighborhoods.

Lacy built a 12-6 record across his two seasons in Team Combat League while representing the Las Vegas Hustle (2023) and the Boston Butchers (2024).

For the uninitiated, a Team Combat League (TCL) event typically consists of 24 fights, each consisting of one three-minute round. The concept finds no favor with traditionalists, but Lacy is a fan. It’s an incentive for professional boxers to keep in shape between bouts without disturbing their professional record and, notes Lacy, it’s useful in exposing a competitor to different styles.

“It paid the bills and kept me from just sitting around the house,” says Lacy whose 12-6 record was forged against 13 different opponents.

As a sparring partner, Lacy has shared the ring with some of the top heavyweights of his generation, e.g., Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua and Dillian Whyte. He was one of Fury’s regular sparring partners during the Gypsy King’s trilogy with Deontay Wilder. He worked with Joshua at Derrick James’ gym in Dallas and at Ben Davison’s gym in England, helping Joshua prepare for his date in Saudi Arabia with Francis Ngannou and had previously sparred with Ngannou at the UFC Performance Center in Las Vegas. Skylar names traveling to new places as one of his hobbies and he got to scratch that itch when he joined Whyte’s camp in Portugal.

As to the hardest puncher he ever faced, he has no hesitation: “Ngannou,” he says. “I negotiated a nice price to spend a week in his camp and the first time he hit me I knew I should have asked for more.”

Lacy is confident that having shared the ring with some of the sport’s elite heavyweights will get him over the hump in what will be his first 10-rounder (Brandon Moore has never had to fight beyond eight rounds, having won his three 10-rounders inside the distance). Lacy vs. Moore is the co-feature to Claressa Shields’ homecoming fight with Danielle Perkins. Shields, basking in the favorable reviews accorded the big-screen biopic based on her first Olympic journey (“The Fire Inside”) will attempt to capture a title in yet another weight class at the expense of the 42-year-old Perkins, a former professional basketball player.

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Mizuki Hiruta Dominates in her U.S. Debut and Omar Trinidad Wins Too at Commerce

Published

4 days ago

January 18, 2025

David A. Avila

Mizuki-Hiruta-Dominates-in-her-U.S.-Debut-and-Trinidad-Wins-Too-at-Commerce

Japan’s Mizuki Hiruta smashed through Mexico’s Maribel Ramirez with ease in winning by technical decision and local hero Omar Trinidad continued his assault on the featherweight division on Friday.

Hiruta (7-0, 2 KOs), who prefers to be called “Mimi,” made her American debut with an impressive performance against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez (15-11-4) and retained the WBO super flyweight world title by unanimous decision at Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

The pink-haired Japanese southpaw champion quickly proved to be quicker, stronger and even better than advertised. In the opening round Ramirez landed on the floor twice after throwing errant blows. On one instance, it could have been ruled a knockdown but it was not a convincing blow.

In the second round, Ramirez again attacked and again was met with a Hiruta check right hook and down went the Mexican. This time referee Ray Corona gave the eight-count and the fight resumed.

It was Hiruta’s third title defense but this time it was on American soil. She seemed nervous by the prospect of getting a favorable review from the more than 700 fans inside the casino tent.

For more than a year Hiruta has been training off and on with Manny Robles in the L.A. area. Now that she has a visa, she has spent considerable time this year learning the tricks of the trade. They proved explosively effective.

Though Mexico City’s Ramirez has considerable experience against world champions, she discovered that Hiruta was not easy to hit. Often, the Japanese champion would slip and counter with precision.

It was an impressive American debut, though the fight was stopped in the eighth round after a collision of heads. The scores were tallied and all three saw Hiruta the winner by scores of 80-71 twice and 79-72.

“I’m so happy. I could have done much more,” said Hiruta through interpreter Yuriko Miyata. “I wanted to do more things that Manny Robles taught me.”

Trinidad Wins Too

Omar Trinidad (18-0-1, 13 KOs) discovered that challenger Mike Plania (31-5, 18 KOs) has a very good chin and staying power. But over 10 rounds Trinidad proved to be too fast and too busy for the Filipino challenger.

Immediately it was evident that the East L.A. featherweight was too quick and too busy for Plania who preferred a counter-puncher attack that never worked.

“He was strong,” said Trinidad. “He took everything.”

After 10 redundant rounds all three judges scored for Trinidad 100-90 twice and 99-91. He retains the WBC Continental Americas title.

Other Bouts

Ali Akhmedov (23-1, 17 KOs) blasted out Malcolm Jones (17-5-1) in less than two rounds. A dozen punches by Akhmedov forced referee Thomas Taylor to stop the super middleweight fight.

Iyana “Roxy” Verduzco (3-0) bloodied Lindsey Ellis in the first round and continued the speedy assault in the next two rounds. Referee Ray Corona saw enough and stopped the fight in favor of Verduzco at 1:34 of the third round.

Gloria Munguilla (7-1) and Brook Sibrian (5-2) lit up the boxing ring with a nonstop clash for eight rounds in their light flyweight fight. Munguilla proved effective with a slip-and-counter attack. Sibrian adjusted and made the fight closer in the last four rounds but all three judges favored Munguilla.

More Winners

Joshua Anton, Tayden Beltran, Adan Palma, and Alexander Gueche all won their bouts.

Photos credit: Al Applerose

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!

Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Published

6 days ago

January 16, 2025

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 309: 360 Promotions Opens with Trinidad, Mizuki and More

Best wishes to the survivors of the Los Angeles wildfires that took place last week and are still ongoing in small locales.

Most of the heavy damage took place in the western part of L.A. near the ocean due to Santa Ana winds. Another very hot spot was in Altadena just north of the Rose Bowl. It was a horrific tragedy.

Hopefully the worst is over.

Pro boxing returns with 360 Boxing Promotions spotlighting East L.A.’s Omar Trinidad (17-0-1, 13 KOs) defending a regional featherweight title against Mike Plania (31-4, 18 KOs) on Friday, Jan. 17, at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, Calif.

“I’m the king of L.A. boxing and I’ll be ready to put on a show headlining again in the main event. This is my year, I’m ready to challenge and defeat any of the featherweight world champions,” said Trinidad.

UFC Fight Pass will stream the Hollywood Night fight card that includes a female world championship fight and other intriguing match-ups.

Tom Loeffler heads 360 Promotions and once again comes full force with a hot prospect in Trinidad. If you’re not familiar with Loeffler’s history of success, he introduced America to Oleksandr Usyk, Gennady “GGG” Golovkin and the brothers Wladimir and Vitaly Kltischko.

“We’ve got a wealth of international talent and local favorites to kick off our 2025 in grand style,” said Loeffler.

He knows talent.

Trinidad hails from the Boyle Heights area of East L.A. near the Los Angeles riverbed. Several fighters from the past came from that exact area including the first Golden Boy, Art Aragon.

Aragon was a huge gate attraction during the late 1940s until 1960. He was known as a lady’s man and dated several Hollywood starlets in his time. Though he never won a world title he did fight world champions Carmen Basilio, Jimmy Carter and Lauro Salas. He was more or less the king of the Olympic Auditorium and Los Angeles boxing during his career.

Other famous boxers from the Boyle Heights area were notorious gangster Mickey Cohen and former world champion Joey Olivo.

Can Trinidad reach world title status?

Facing Trinidad will be Filipino fighter Plania who’s knocked off a couple of prospects during his career including Joshua “Don’t Blink” Greer and Giovanni Gutierrez. The fighter from General Santos in the Philippines can crack and hold his own in the boxing ring.

It’s a very strong fight card and includes WBO world titlist Mizuki Hiruta of Japan who defends the super flyweight title against Mexican veteran Maribel Ramirez. It’s a tough matchup for Hiruta who makes her American debut. You can’t miss her with that pink hair and she has all the physical tools to make a splash in this country.

Mizukii Hiruta

Two other female bouts are also planned, including light flyweight banger L.A.’s Gloria Munguilla (6-1) against Coachella’s Brook Sibrian (5-1) in a match set for six rounds. Both are talented fighters. Another female fight includes super featherweights Iyana “Right Hook Roxy” Verduzco (2-0) versus Lindsey Ellis (2-1) in another six-rounder. Ellis can crack with all her wins coming via knockout. Verduzco is a multi-national titlist as an amateur.

Others scheduled to perform are Ali Akhmedov, Joshua Anton, Adan Palma and more.

Doors open at 4:30 p.m.

Boxing and the Media

The sport of professional boxing is currently in flux. It’s always in flux but no matter what people may say or write, boxing will survive.

Whether you like Jake Paul or not, he proved boxing has worldwide appeal with monstrous success in his last show. He has media companies looking at the numbers and imagining what they can do with the sport.

Sure, UFC is negotiating a massive billion dollar deal with media companies, as is WWE, both are very similar in that they provide combat entertainment. You don’t need to know the champions because they really don’t matter. Its about the attractions.

Boxing is different. The good champions last and build a following that endures even beyond their careers a la Mike Tyson.

MMA can’t provide that longevity, but it does provide entertainment.

Currently, there is talk of establishing a boxing league again. It’s been done over and over but we shall see if it sticks this time.

Pro boxing is the true warrior’s path and that means a solo adventure. It’s a one-on-one sport and that appeals to people everywhere. It’s the oldest sport that can be traced to prehistoric times. You don’t need classes in Brazilian Jiujitsu, judo, kick boxing or wrestling. Just show up in a boxing gym and they can put you to work.

It’s a poor person’s path that can lead to better things and most importantly discipline.

Photos credit: Lina Baker

To comment on this story in the Fight Forum CLICK HERE

Post Views: 0

Share The Sweet Science experience!