Bob Arum settles lawsuit with Al Haymon

By Boxing News - 05/19/2016 - Comments

arum92By Jeff Aranow: Top Rank head honcho Bob Arum has reportedly settled his $100 million lawsuit with Al Haymon, the creator of Premier Boxing Champions as of Thursday. It’s unclear what the settlement was in the lawsuit being dropped. The 84-year-old Arum’s lawsuit was a federal anti-trust lawsuit.

The lawsuit wasn’t dropped due the potential for a big money rematch between Floyd Mayweather Jr., who works with Haymon, and Arum’s fighter Pacquiao. A lot of boxing fans thought Arum had used bad timing in initiating the lawsuit after the Mayweather vs. Pacquiao fight last year because they felt it might get in the way of a rematch between the two fighters.

Pacquiao recently captured a seat in the senate in the Philippines, and it’s unlikely that he’ll have the time or the inclination to return to the ring to fight Mayweather or anyone else that Arum could potentially match him again.

“The stipulation of dismissal was filed in federal court in Los Angeles, and it’s a matter of public record,” Arum said to ESPN.com. “We settled, but the terms of the settlement are confidential, and I’m not going to talk about it. I’d be pissed if they said anything about it, and I am not going to.”

With Arum dropping the lawsuit, it’ll be interesting to see if Arum’s fighters from his Top Rank stable will now be facing Haymon’s fighters form his huge stable. It would be great for the sport if the two of them could work together. Arum’s stable has taken a hit with the loss of Pacquiao and Mikey Garcia. Another Arum fighter Tim Bradley is getting up there in age and probably not capable of beating Haymon’s best welterweights in Shawn Porter, Keith Thurman and Errol Spence. Bradley would likely be the underdog against any of those three welterweights.

“As a legal basis, there is no impediment,” Arum said to ESPN about him matching his Top Rank fighters against Haymon’s fighters. “As a practical basis, it’s certainly a big possibility, but then again, it will depend on the ability of the two of us to work together to bring that about. It would make sense for both us. I’m optimistic that everybody is going to work together and make big fights. I think there’s a realization on everybody’s part that in order to get big fights, you’re gonna have to work together.”

One interesting match that fight fans would like to see is the winner of the July 23 fight between Arum’s two light welterweight champions Terence Crawford and Viktor Postol fighting former four division world champion Adrien “The “Problem” Broner. That would make for an interesting fight if Arum and Hayumon could put that one together. It would depend on Broner though, as well as Haymon. If Broner chooses to say no to fighting the winner of the Postol vs. Crawford fight, then it’s doubtful Haymon will try and force the issue. However, there’s talk of Broner moving up to welterweight to challenge WBC welterweight champion Danny Garcia for his title. That would be a fight that would be bigger than Broner facing the winner of the Crawford-Postol fight.