Arum knows he has work to do

By Gavin Duthie - 01/04/2016 - Comments

Ellerbe and ArumBy Gav Duthie: If Bob Arum were a boxer he would currently be going into the 12th and final round having lost all 11 before him looking to windmill his way to a knockout victory.

This is how it feels with the Top Rank promoter trying to justify a trilogy match between Manny Pacquiao and Timothy Bradley. Arum has been in the game long enough to know that this will be a tough sell. He is trying to tell us that this is a different Tim Bradley but fans are not convinced.

PPV and marketing

Both previous bouts between the two brought in around 800,000 buys with the second slightly less than the first. When talking about the third bout Arum said (courtesy of Yahoo Sports).

“Will we do the same numbers for the first two Bradley fights? Probably not. Were going to try and come as close as we can, and hopefully exceed it, but I understand what were up against. I’ve run my numbers and I’ve done my math. I’m not out there with my head up my [expletive]”.

He furthermore stated that fellow Top Rank fighter Terrence Crawford was not yet marketable enough and that HBO were cold on the prospect of Pacquiao v Amir Khan on PPV. This in Arum’s mind left Bradley as the stand out option. Both previous fights were interesting but far from exciting and most fans and media felt that Pacquiao won them both anyway. Arum feels marketing will be hard because of the disappointment with the Floyd Mayweather v Pacquiao fight but its much more than that. He is going to market this fight as ‘A different Bradley’ but fans won’t swallow that there has been a dramatic change in a 31-year-old’s fighting abilities even with Teddy Atlas in charge. This will not be marketed as Pacquiao’s last fight and with this news I hope it isn’t his final outing.

Other options

Arum is claiming nobody wanted Khan but what about everyone else. There was no mention of champions Kell Brook or Keith Thurman, the undefeated Danny Garcia would have been a big fight and even Adrien Broner would have done more than a 3rd fight with Bradley. It seems more like Arum doesn’t want to deal with Oscar De La Hoya and Al Haymon than a lack of interest. Fans are getting fed up of Arum putting his own fighters together in matches, rematches, trilogies and quadrilogies and acting like Golden Boy and Haymon fighters don’t exist.

YouTube video

Summary

Manny Pacquiao has probably made Bob Arum more money than any other fighter and he deserves more. If he wanted to fight Khan then it shouldn’t matter if it gets huge PPV numbers, Arum owes Pacquiao a fight he wants not just the only Top Rank fighters available in Tim Bradley and Terrence Crawford. I highly doubt that this fight will do numbers anywhere near the previous 2 and I hope this is the case because the fight shouldn’t be happening.



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