De La Hoya: If Arum wasn’t around, I’d make Mayweather-Pacquiao, Chavez-Martinez & Maidana-Rios fights

By Boxing News - 11/21/2011 - Comments

Image: De La Hoya: If Arum wasn't around, I'd make Mayweather-Pacquiao, Chavez-Martinez & Maidana-Rios fightsBy Chris Williams: Oscar De La Hoya of Golden Boy Promotions believes that Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is getting in the way of some important fights that could and should be made, such as Manny Pacquiao vs. Floyd Mayweather Jr., Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. vs. Sergio Martinez and Brandon Rios vs. Marcos Maidana.

De La Hoya said this on his twitter: “Don’t worry people once Arum is not promoting anymore, I will make sure the sport I clearly believe and love will resurge to its glory days. If it was up to me and Bob Arum wasn’t around, Golden Boy [Promotions] would do Pac vs. Mayweather, Chavez Jr. vs. Martinez, Brandon Rios vs. Maidana.”

De La Hoya clearly thinks Arum is getting in the way of these important fights from being made. I’m not really aware of Arum stopping the Maidana vs. Rios fight from happening, but he sure hasn’t seemed eager to put Chavez Jr. in with Martinez. That’s pretty clear. As far as the Pacquiao-Mayweather fight, I also think Arum could have made that fight happen a long time ago if he had pressured Pacquiao into accepting a shorter cut-off date for the blood testing for performance enhancing drugs during the first failed negotiations with Mayweather a year ago.

And now recently, Arum is talking about putting Pacquiao in with Juan Manuel Marquez for a fourth fight between the two fighters rather than matching Pacquiao up immediately with Mayweather in February or May of 2012. Some boxing fans think that Arum is getting cold feet about matching his cash cow Pacquiao up with Mayweather for fear that Pacquiao will get soundly beaten and his future paydays going downwards after that.

Arum, 80, is definitely getting up there in age. However, it’s unclear whether any of those fights would get made even if Arum weren’t around anymore. I can see Pacquiao still not facing Mayweather and Chavez Jr. not being put in with Martinez even if Arum wasn’t in the equation any longer. I think Top Rank won’t be eager to make those fights happen any time soon even without Arum. Why should they? Pacquiao is making big money facing lesser guys and doesn’t really need to fight Mayweather and likely take a beating. If he can get $20 million every time out no matter who he fights, it probably doesn’t make sense to have him fight Mayweather and lose. The same goes for Chavez Jr. against Martinez. Chavez Jr. isn’t making the same kind of huge money that Pacquiao is, but if they keep matching him against guys that Chavez Jr. can actually beat, then the boxing public may be willing to purchase his fights on pay per view in droves. The casual boxing fans don’t follow the sport as closely as the hardcore fans and they could buy into Chavez Jr. being the best fighter in the middleweight division eventually as long as Chavez Jr. is kept away from some of the best fighters in the middleweight division that would likely beat him.

By the same token, De La Hoya hasn’t seemed eager to put one of his biggest names, IBF/WBA light welterweight champion Amir Khan back in with two fighters he struggled against in the past Breidis Prescott and Marcos Maidana. As such, you can say De La Hoya also protects his fighters from risky fights.



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