THE FACE OF BOXING Bob Arum The End of an Era Photographs by Wojtek Urbanek • Text by Thomas Hauser
B ob Arum was born in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in 1931 and graduated from Harvard Law School in 1956. Six years later, he was working as an attorney in the tax division of the United States Attorney’s Office in Manhattan when Floyd Patterson defended his heavyweight title against Sonny Liston. Arum was given the assignment of impounding revenue from the fight’s closed-circuit television outlets. He had never seen a fight before. But he could count and the numbers impressed him. Arum left government service in 1965 and was introduced to Muhammad Ali by football great Jim Brown. In 1966, he formed a company called Main Bouts to promote Ali’s fights. The other Main Bouts equity participants were Herbert Muhammad (Ali’s manager), John Ali (chief aide to Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad), Lester Malitz (an expert in the area of closed-circuit telecasts) and Brown. Their first promotion was Ali’s title defense against George Chuvalo in Toronto on March 29, 1966. The world was very different then. Lyndon Johnson was president of the United States. Only 3% of all lawyers in America were women. Gay sex was illegal in 49 out of 50 states. An African-American woman had never served in Congress. By the end of the year, 385,000 American soldiers would be fighting in Vietnam. A McDonald’s hamburger cost 15 cents. Mike Tyson had yet to be born. Arum has been boxing’s most reliable constant through the six decades that followed. In 1973, he founded Top Rank. Six years later, ESPN was launched. The network was far from the colossus then that it is now. Lumberjacking and replays of Australian rules football were common programming. Top Rank Boxing on ESPN debuted on April 10, 1980, and continued for 15 years. The series established basic cable as a significant new outlet for boxing and guaranteed that fans could watch regularly scheduled fights on a weekly basis. In 1981, Arum moved a step further, contracting for Marvin Hagler to appear three times on HBO. It was the first multi- fight contract ever for an elite fighter to appear on a premium cable television network. In 2017, Top Rank returned to ESPN. Their contract (amended a year later) expires this summer and won’t be renewed. It’s unclear where Top Rank will fit into the ever- changing landscape of boxing in the future. Clearly, it won’t
be the dominant force that it once was. Meanwhile, Arum will turn 94 on December 8. This is a time to acknowledge his extraordinary accomplishments. When Top Rank’s contract with ESPN ends, Arum will have promoted 2,200 fight cards and 723 world title fights in 317 cities around the world. 941 of these cards will have been televised on ESPN and 129 on HBO. Seventy-three Hall of Fame boxers fought on cards that Arum promoted. Miguel Cotto appeared on Top Rank cards 41 times (more than any other fighter). Muhammad Ali fought for Arum 27 times. But those numbers don’t tell the entire story. Arum didn’t invent new technologies like pay-per-view, the internet and social media. But he used them well. He was the first major player in boxing to understand and exploit the power of the Hispanic market in the United States. He also championed boxing’s lighter weight classes. One can say that it was a no-brainer to build lucrative megafights around Hagler (20 fights for Top Rank), Ray Leonard (7), Roberto Duran (8) and Thomas Hearns (13). But Arum took 108-pound Michael Carbajal out of the 1988 Olympics and promoted him 38 times en route to a million- dollar purse in a matchup against Humberto Gonzalez. Arum launched the extraordinary careers of Oscar De La Hoya (whom he promoted for 37 fights) and Floyd Mayweather (35). More than anyone else, he was responsible for building Manny Pacquiao (26 fights) into an international superstar. Terence Crawford (24 fights) also bears Top Rank’s imprint. It was Arum who sold the world on the possibilities inherent in a comeback by a washed-up, overweight, hamburger- eating heavyweight who hadn’t fought in 10 years. When George Foreman (14 fights for Top Rank) returned to the ring in 1987, his comeback was mocked as a quixotic quest. In 1994, he knocked out Michael Moorer to reclaim the heavyweight championship of the world. Arum also understood the importance of delegating authority and building a team. Six Top Rank employees – Teddy Brenner, Irving Rudd, Bruce Trampler, Lee Samuels, Brad Jacobs and Brad Goodman – have joined him in the International Boxing Hall of Fame. To paraphrase Shakespeare: This is a promoter. When comes such another?
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