Bob Arum

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Robert "Bob" Arum (born December 8, 1931 in New York City) is professional boxing promoter. He also worked for the US Attorneys Office for the southern district of New York, in the Tax division.

Arum attended Erasmus Hall High School, New York University and Harvard Law School. He was worked as an attorney and in the United States Department of Justice, and had little interest in boxing until 1965.[1] He used his education and business savvy to become a boxing promoter, and during the 1980s became a driving force behind the sport, rivalling Don King. Arum put together superfights like Marvin Hagler vs. Roberto Durán and Hagler vs. Thomas Hearns.

A particularly touching moment happened when Arum mounted the Hagler-John Mugabi, Hearns-James Shuler double header in Las Vegas April 1986. After the Hearns-Shuler fight, Shuler, who had lost by knockout in the first round, showed up at Arum's hotel room to thank him for the opportunity to fight Hearns. Ten days later, Shuler was dead in an unfortunate motorcycle accident.

Arum kept producing big-scale undercards and superfights, including the Hagler-Sugar Ray Leonard bout, the Leonard-Hearns rematch, Evander Holyfield vs. George Foreman and many others.

Some of Arum's superstars from the 1990s include former world Flyweight champion Michael Carbajal and current boxing superstars includes five-time world champion Oscar de la Hoya, three-time division champion Erik Morales and reigning and defending Super Featherweight World champion Manny Pacquiao.

Arum has concentrated largely on promoting Hispanic fighters in recent years, citing surveys which show boxing is among the most popular sports within the Hispanic community. He has had great success with fighters such as Miguel Cotto, who has won world titles at 140 and 147 pounds, and Antonio Margarito, who held a 147-pound WBO belt from 2002-2007.

He has concentrated many of his shows in the Southwestern portion of the U.S., in cities with large Spanish-speaking populations. He's also the promoter of many of the cards on Telefutura, a Spanish language network.

Arum is a member of the International Boxing Hall Of Fame.

[edit] Controversies

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Please improve this article if you can (June 2008).
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  • On the first week of January 2004, FBI agents raided Arum's Top Rank office in Las Vegas. Arum was on vacation when his office was raided, and the FBI originally declined to comment on the raid. The media reported that the FBI was investigating allegations that Top Rank was involved in fixing the rematch between de la Hoya and Shane Mosley. Although this seemed odd considering De La Hoya lost and Arum was De La Hoya's promoter. Also De La Hoya has the bigger name, and if anything the match should have been fixed in De La Hoya's favor to set up the second rematch. The federal agency also announced that it was investigating some of Eric Esch's fights, as well as the Jorge Paez-Verdell Smith fight. The investigation closed in the summer of 2006 with no charges being filed.
  • Arum was penalized $125000 by the Nevada State Athletic Commission for a 1995 bribe to get a fight sanctioned.
  • Floyd Mayweather feud: ("Cut the middle man out and see what you can get. You were talking about paying me $2 or $3 million when it really should have been $6 million. And once I cut the middle man out, it became $15 or $30 million.") [1]
  • Forty year feud with Don King, who called him a "rat fink" in 2000. [2] [3]
  • 2003 feud with Nevada State Boxing Commission [4]
  • 2007 accusations of "sucking the life out of the sport and not putting anything back in," [5] and unethical behavior. [6]
  • Arum has been accused of being racist by Robert Lee, disgraced former head of the I.B.F. Lee said: "I pin the racism charge on him because he once told me: `We will let the Blacks and the Latinos fight in the ring and we will count the money on the outside'." [7]
  • Goossen feud: “It’s obvious Bob hasn’t learned one thing from his latest bag of false and inaccurate accusations..." [10]
  • Arum has suggested that the UFC is “a bunch of white guys that can’t compete in any other sport.”[2]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Berkow, Ira. "ARUM IS PROVEN RINGMASTER", The New York Times, April 7, 1987. Accessed December 3, 2007. "Why not? After five months since the signing for the fight, the man who came from Brooklyn, who went to Erasmus Hall High School, New York University and Harvard Law School, and who worked as a taxation expert on Wall Street, for the District Attorney's office in New York City, in the Justice Department during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations, and who until 1965 had no interest in boxing - in two guys clubbing each other over the head - was about to make a profit for himself of somewhere between $3 million and $6 million."
  2. ^ Sports - A new rival enters the ring - sacbee.com

[edit] External links