Arum says he thought the Pacquiao-Clottey undercard was “very good”
March 16th, 2010
By Chris Williams: In an interview of Top Rank promoter Bob Arum by Greg Leon of Boxing Talk Arum says when asked about the undercard of last Saturday’s Pacquiao-Clottey fight at the Cowboy Stadium “I thought the undercard fights were very good. I thought the Soto-Diaz fight was a very good fight. I thought the crowd was into it and I thought it was closer than the scorecards had it. I thought Duddy performed very well against a tough Mexican. Unfortunately Castillo came up empty and retired, but I think it was a strong undercard.”
Of all the fights on the entire card, only the Duddy-Medina fight seemed interesting and the excitement of that fight was taken away, at least for me, because I felt like I was watching two second tier fighters going at it rather than top level guys. Oddly enough, both Duddy and Medina are ranked in the top 15. Overall, the undercard lacked depth and any real exciting fights.
Soto fought carefully against Diaz and boxed his way to a decision. It was a dull fight from the start and only got worse in the last four rounds when Soto went into cruise control and seemed to not even fight hard. He didn’t need, because Diaz was below his level. And the Castillo-Gomez fight was really sad to watch, because Castillo couldn’t let his punches go during the fight and looked like a shell of his former self. It was really one-sided fight and it many people thought it was going to be that as soon as the fight was announced.
On another topic, Arum reveals that Floyd Mayweather Jr. won’t be able to count having Manny Pacquiao take the random blood tests if he plans on fighting him in the near future. Arum says “If Mayweather wins, we certainly want to fight Mayweather, but he’s got to come to the table looking to make a regular boxing contract. We’re not going to entertain any extra issues regarding drug testing.”
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From a businessman’s perspective, “very good” means 51,000 boxing fans equates to $$$…suckers!
Duddy is fighting at Yankee Stadium next.
This Arum is grumpy old man. He is becoming like a nuisance Don King.
Look, he did not deal with HBO for 24/7 series to hype up the PPV buys. He spent little on advertising the fight and relies mainly on Pac himself to promote the fight. If Mayweather-Mosley will reach 2M buys while Pac-Clottey gets less than 800K buys, for sure Mayweather won’t agree with 50/50 sharing and this will kill the future of Pac-Floydie fight. ARUM’s head is the first to blame.
Arum putted boring undercards featuring the wash-up quitter Castillo and C class fighter Diaz. The main event also a boring fight.
He must be delusional
Duddy cant win. He goes in there and get a terrrible beating to the face and wins but takes criticism for lack of defence or he goes in and boxes well moves his head and wins. Give the man a break.
Does anybody know how many pay perview buys the bout got? and where could i find it? thanks? oh buy the way…arum won the fight.
The undercard wasn’t that bad. You wouldn’t expect the undercard to outshine the Main Event anyway. No one tries to put on good undercards anymore anyways. Just be glad they give you anything. They’d probably charge you $49.95 for one fight if they thought they could get away with it.
It was a great undercard for Arum… He made a boatload of money off of a bunch of subpar fighters… And of course they will not entertain the random blood testing issue… This was apparent during the first negotiations… The fight will not happen… They will say Mayweather ducked because he asked for random blood testing for PEDS (WOW Ducking). And Mayweather’s will say Pacquaio is scared to blood test because he’s dirty (Not proven whatsoever, even though its kind of hard to without the tests). Either way the fight wont happen because I do not see either side giving in. Mayweather doesnt have to because what he’s asking for will not be looked at as a bad thing (By unbias people). Pacquiao does not have to because he has a Nation siding with him and he will have a fanbase no matter what he does.
The main event also lacked depth and excitement. Pacquiao vs Clottey was the worst PPV in boxing history.
I hope top rank DON’T get to promote the Mayweather Pacroid fight, there undercards are missmates, its all about Golden boy and Hatton Promotions
Arum is loosing it, maby alzheimers. Not one good undercard and the main fight could have been much better if clottey did something other than stand there with his hand up.
he mustve been watching a different undercard then the one i was paying for. It was as bland and pathetic as everyone predicted it would be.
I wish they would put on good undercards. I am a big fan and educated student of the game and i still was bored out of my mind with the undercards. They didnt even have anything special that i could learn off of them. Arum along all the other promoters are selfish, greedy idiots.
The undercard sucked, the Soto fight was good, but he could of ended the fight sooner too. By the way the HBO commentators suck! They totally over do it and exaggerate on everything that is obvious in the ring. They just keep saying the same things over and over again.
Arum says “If Mayweather wins, we certainly want to fight Mayweather, but he’s got to come to the table looking to make a regular boxing contract. We’re not going to entertain any extra issues regarding drug testing.” What’s a “regular boxing contract”, Bob? Issues such as gloves type/weight, ring size, tautness of the mat, {Manny’s demand Floyd pay extra for any/every pound he comes in over 147], etc. has always been negotiated. The point is there is “no regular boxing contract”. So stop feeding the perception that Manny is a PED user and agree to the RANDOM drug testing, and allow the damn fight to be made!
They need to start making better fights for the undercards. Don’t just get names but make sure the fighters are willing to go out and put on a show, especially for the PPV’s. They also need to start hyping the undercard aswell as the Main Event. If they hype it like the UFC does then they will sell more and draw a bigger crowd. Also fans get a little emotional towards a fight when they know the fighters and why they are fighting. That in itself would create more excitement. I wish I could be part of these promotions because I would show them how it’s done. The presentation of the whole card was very nice but the fights were’nt on par with it.
As I said before the fight…. ARUM WINS!!!
Why are ppl hatin on the undercard is not like there’s been a good undercard in years!! Why start hatin now!! We should be use to weak undercards!!
I wonder if the Bobfather knows that the fight is over. He doesn’t have to pretend like the undercard is great anymore. Best to just be honest about it. But whatever. Bob Arum is one of the shadiest promoters in the sport anyway.
lol of course arum is gonna say the under card was good,, hes the promoter!!!! for cripes sake. what is he supposed to say,, it sucked??? its no surprise that lately undercards have been horrible. the days of good if not great undercards are long gone. but sho-time has good match-ups as of late
some body must like duddy he keeps getting the knod ?
Just keep sippin ur shroom tea Arum, cause thats the only way that card looked good…
bob…you are a bigger snake than me !!
Let’s face it, Bob Arum is out to make money. With a live gate of almost 51,000, plus the revenue from PPV, he made a bundle. So for Arum, it was a very good undercard. As for Duddy, he has helped the image of boxing and provided lots of excitement in his early career. However, it’s all been down hill since the Smichet fiasco. Duddy’s power and speed have also eroded over time. After one or two more big money bouts, Duddy should consider retirement with a good record.
Undercard was shocking!
Clottey gave a poor account of himself too. He basocally cvovered up 80% of the fight, and then threw 2 jabs every so often. Clottey was just in it for the cheque, and to say that he actually lasted the whole 12 rounds.
duddy awful poor nuff said
Of course Arum thinks that, he is pretty much wrong on everything he sayd, so he might as well stay in true form.
lol, the entire card stunk. Duddy was especially embarassing, a middleweight who had to pull out a SD against a career welterweight/jr. middleweight.
Way better than the main event actually.