Following the 1963 suicide of Washington Heights Savings and Loan Association president Floyd Cramer, hours after his indictment for being the "mastermind" of a mortgage tax-evasion scheme; Arum recalled, "I knew then that I wasn't cut out to be a prosecutor." Arum continued to practice civil law until dissolving his office in 1979.[7]
Boxing promoter
In 1962, Arum was assigned by the Department of Justice to confiscate proceeds from the September 25, 1962 Sonny Liston vs. Floyd Pattersonworld heavyweight boxing title fight;[1] during which he met closed-circuit television (CCTV) pioneer and former Leo Burnett & Co. vice-president Lester M. Malitz (1907 – July 24, 1965) of Lester M. Malitz Inc.[8] Malitz was the promoter of the 1965 Terrell–Chuvalo bout, during which he retained Arum to represent him. In 1966, subsequent to a suggestion by Jim Brown, whom Arum had secured for Malitz as the fight's announcer,[9] Arum became a boxing promoter. In 2016, Brown recalled that Arum had seen a televised fight in 1965, as "The first fight Arum ever saw was Terrell–Chuvalo, and he watched that from the television truck."[10] Arum credits Brown with introducing him to Muhammad Ali, and Ali with teaching him how to be a boxing promoter.[11]
Arum became a vice-president and secretary of Ali's promotion company, Main Bout. Mike Malitz, son of Lester, like Arum, owned 20 percent of the company and became its vice-president. Jim Brown owned 10 percent of the company and served as its vice-president in charge of publicity.[12] Referencing his first live fight viewing, Arum was reported as saying that he "had never seen a boxing match before the first fight I did with Ali", referring to the 1966 Muhammad Ali vs. George ChuvaloVancouver bout.[13]
During the 1980s, Arum became a driving force behind the sport, rivaling Don King. Arum organized superfights including Marvin Hagler vs. Roberto Durán and Hagler vs. Thomas Hearns. Arum mounted the Hagler–John Mugabi, Hearns–James Shuler doubleheader in Las Vegas in 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.[citation needed] ten days after that bout, Shuler died in a motorcycle accident.[14]
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. This strategy began after his success signing Roberto Durán and promoting Durán's comeback fight against Davey Moore, which demonstrated that he was not washed up after the 1980 "No más" fight. Next, he signed Julio César Chávez Jr. and Oscar De La Hoya.[15] He has had great success with Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto, who won world titles at the 140, 147, 154, 160-pound weight divisions; Mexican-American Antonio Margarito, who held a 147-pound WBO belt from 2002 to 2007; Mexican-American José Ramírez, the former WBC and WBO light welterweight world champion; Honduran-American Teófimo López, the former lightweight world champion; and Mexican Óscar Valdez, the former WBC super featherweight world champion.
Arum has concentrated many of his shows in the Southwestern portion of the U.S., in cities with large Spanish-speaking populations. He is also the promoter of many of the cards on Telefutura, a Spanish language network. He later shifted over to Azteca América.[16] In 2016, he put together an all-Hispanic undercard for Manny Pacquiao vs. Timothy Bradley III in protest of then-presidential candidate Donald Trump's statements on Mexican immigration.[17]
As a boxing promoter, Arum had been involved in many spats and controversies, including a 40-year feud with Don King,[19][20] with whom he has co-promoted several fights.[21]UFC president Dana White has also been a vocal critic and the two have engaged in a protracted and acerbic public feud;[22][23][24] in 2018, White briefly became a rival boxing promoter.[25]
In 1994, he was involved with John Daly for the High Noon in Hong Kong boxing event. The fights were called off at the last minute when Barry Hearn scuttled the bout by withdrawing his fighters, when no purses were forthcoming from Top Rank.[26]
In 2000, citing extortion, Arum voluntarily testified to having paid IBF president Robert W. "Bobby" Lee Sr. $100,000 in two installments in 1995, as the first half of a $200,000 bribe, through "middleman, Stanley Hoffman", adding that Lee had first demanded $500,000 to approve the Schulz–Foreman fight but had settled for the lesser amount of $200,000 (half of which was never paid).[27] Lee was indicted for racketeering in 1999, but convicted of money laundering and tax evasion in 2000. Following his testimony, Arum was sanctioned and fined $125,000 by the Nevada State Athletic Commission.[28]Boxing promotersCedric Kushner and Dino Duva also admitted to making similar payments to Lee.[28]
Oscar De La Hoya successfully sued Arum and was legally released from his contract with Top Rank in January 2001.[29][30] Following years of acrimony; he and De La Hoya publicly salvaged their relationship.[31]
In 2003, Arum complained about judging in the September 13 bout between Oscar De La Hoya and Sugar Shane Mosley and suggested there was a vendetta against him from a member of the Nevada State Commission that led to De La Hoya's loss. Arum later made an apology for the remark which commission chairman Luther Mack accepted.[32]
In 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 news media reported that the FBI was investigating allegations that Top Rank was involved in fixing the rematch between De La Hoya and Shane Mosley, even though De La Hoya lost and Arum was De La Hoya's promoter. The federal agency also announced it was investigating some of Eric Esch's fights, as well as the Jorge Páez–Verdell Smith fight. The investigation closed in the summer of 2006 with no charges being filed.
In 2007, Yahoo Sports reported that, "Floyd Mayweather Jr. essentially accused Arum, who promoted him from the beginning of his career in 1996 until 2006, of underpaying him, exploiting his talents and manipulating officials."[19] Mayweather, who also became a boxing promoter, stated to Yahoo Sports in 2015, "I don't have anything bad to say about Bob Arum."[33]
Arum filed a lawsuit against HBO for overstepping its boundaries in the sport by becoming a de facto promoter while trying to intentionally eliminate him as a promoter. Arum complained that HBO dropped Mayweather from his exclusive deal after he insisted his fighter have a tougher bout than the network wanted. The suit was settled out of court but Arum continued to criticize HBO by saying "Instead of working with promoters, like they have done in the past, they have become promoters themselves. They make the fights just like promoters and pay fighters", Arum said. "It's their money and they can do what they want but Don King doesn't have to go along with it and neither do I. King and I can get along without HBO or Showtime ... The problem HBO Sports got into is they became defenders of the status quo. They held you back because they had control."[34]
In 2009, Arum defended Antonio Margarito when he lost his boxing license in the US state of California on charges of illegal hand wraps,[35] implying that it was racially motivated and stating that Top Rank would not come back to the state of California until the issue was rectified.
In 2020, Arum stated that one of his top boxers, Terence Crawford should also start promoting himself better. He compared his situation with several other greats in the sport. Arum stated he could have built a house in Beverly Hills with the money he lost on Crawford's last three fights.[36] Crawford did not take this lightly, responding through numerous media outlets showing his disappointment towards Arum's comments. In January 2022, Crawford sued Arum for racial bias and for the money he lost by not being promoted well enough.[37]
Personal life
Arum has been married twice. He had three children with his first wife: Richard, Elizabeth, and John.[38] His son, environmental lawyer John Arum (1961–2010), fell to his death in 2010 while climbing the north face of Storm King, a mountain in North Cascades National Park; he is most remembered for his meticulous representation of Native American tribal rights.[39]
In 1991, he married Lovee duBoef[40] with whom he has two stepchildren; Todd duBoef, President of Top Rank[41] and Dena duBoef, vice president of Top Rank.[42] Arum was a close friend and business partner of the late billionaire casino tycoon, and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp, Sheldon Adelson.[43][44]
Arum endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[45]
Cannabis advocate
Arum, who appeared as corrupt DEA agent, "Stokes", in the 1975 film, The Marijuana Affair, at the behest of his friend, Jamaican-born boxing promoter, filmmaker, bookie, and horse-racing aficionado Lucien Chen (June 6, 1928 – December 16, 2015), has advocated for the decriminalization of cannabis; and, in a 2017 interview, stated that he had started smoking it in 1966, declaring, "Cannabis is good for you! It's these damn people during the Nixon administration that really put cannabis into the position where it was a drug like heroin and cocaine and that was wrong" and adding that "in a lot of ways, marijuana is better for the athlete as pain medication than the drugs.”[46] In a 2017 VICE interview (which erroneously reports film producer Chen as Shen); Arum was also quoted as saying, "I think the NFL is gonna revise its policy on marijuana and I think everybody should. It was the Nixon administration that demonized marijuana, to the real harm of a lot of people, particularly people who have terminal cancer. Marijuana can be a very therapeutic thing."[47]
Film and television
Arum has appeared on several television documentaries, boxing specials, movies and shows, usually being interviewed about a boxer or fight but occasionally as an actor himself, including in Play It To The Bone (where he played a boxing fan) and Arliss.[48]
HBO World Championship Boxing is an American sports television series on premium television network HBO. It premiered on January 22, 1973 with a fight that saw George Foreman defeat Joe Frazier in Kingston, Jamaica.
Marvelous Marvin Hagler was an American professional boxer. He competed in boxing from 1973 to 1987 and reigned as the undisputed champion of the middleweight division from 1980 to 1987, making twelve successful title defenses, all but one by knockout. Hagler also holds the highest knockout percentage of all undisputed middleweight champions at 78 percent. His undisputed middleweight championship reign of six years and seven months is the second-longest active reign of the 20th century. He holds the record for the sixth longest reign as champion in middleweight history. Nicknamed "Marvelous" and annoyed that network announcers often did not refer to him as such, Hagler legally changed his name to "Marvelous Marvin Hagler" in 1982.
Ray Charles Leonard, best known as "Sugar" Ray Leonard, is an American former professional boxer, motivational speaker, and occasional actor. Often regarded as one of the greatest boxers of all time, he competed professionally between 1977 and 1997, winning world titles in five weight classes; the lineal championship in three weight classes; as well as the undisputed welterweight championship. Leonard was part of the "Four Kings", a group of boxers who all fought each other throughout the 1980s, consisting of Leonard, Roberto Durán, Thomas Hearns, and Marvin Hagler. Leonard also won a light welterweight gold medal at the 1976 Summer Olympics.
Oscar De La Hoya is an American boxing promoter and former professional boxer who competed from 1992 to 2008. His accolades include winning 11 world titles in six weight classes, including the lineal championship in three weight classes. De La Hoya was nicknamed "The Golden Boy of boxing" by the media when he represented the United States at the 1992 Summer Olympics where, shortly after having graduated from James A. Garfield High School, he won a gold medal in the lightweight division, and reportedly "set a sport back on its feet."
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Floyd Joy Mayweather Sr. is an American boxing trainer and former professional boxer who competed from 1973 to 1990. Fighting at welterweight during the 1970s and 1980s, Mayweather Sr. was known for his defensive abilities and overall knowledge of boxing strategy. He is the father and former trainer of Floyd Mayweather Jr., and also father to Justin Mayweather, an American boxer residing in Las Vegas.
Top Rank, Inc. is a boxing promotional company founded by Jabir Herbert Muhammad and Bob Arum, which was incorporated in 1973, and is based in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Miguel Cotto vs. Antonio Margarito, billed as "The Battle", was a professional boxing match between WBA welterweight champion Miguel Cotto and former IBF and WBO welterweight champion Antonio Margarito. The WBA welterweight title bout took place on July 26, 2008, at the MGM Grand in Paradise, Nevada, and resulted in an eleventh round technical knockout victory for Margarito.
Oscar De La Hoya vs. Manny Pacquiao, also billed as The Dream Match, was a professional boxing welterweight superfight. The bout took place on December 6, 2008 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena, Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S. Pacquiao defeated De La Hoya via technical knockout when De La Hoya decided not to continue with the fight before the start of the ninth round. The card was a co-production of Bob Arum's Top Rank Boxing and De La Hoya's Golden Boy Promotions and was aired live on pay-per-view (PPV) on HBO PPV. The fight is notable for propelling Manny Pacquiao to full-blown superstar status in much of the western world, as Oscar De La Hoya symbolically "passed the torch", so to speak, to Pacquiao.
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Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Miguel Cotto, billed as Ring Kings, was a boxing super welterweight bout held on May 5, 2012, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States. Mayweather won the fight by unanimous decision in what was deemed to be a clear, but very competitive and exciting victory for Floyd.
Floyd Mayweather Jr. vs. Manny Pacquiao, billed as the Fight of the Century or the Battle for Greatness, was a professional boxing match between undefeated five-division world champion Floyd Mayweather Jr. and eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao. It took place on May 2, 2015, at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Paradise, Nevada. Mayweather Jr. won the contest by unanimous decision, with two judges scoring it 116–112 and the other 118–110.
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Manny Pacquiao competed in professional boxing from 1995 to 2021. Regarded by boxing historians as one of the greatest professional boxers of all time, Pacquiao is the only boxer in history to win twelve major world titles in eight different weight divisions. He is also the first boxer in history to win the lineal championship in five different weight divisions, as well as being the first boxer in history to win major world titles in four of the original eight weight divisions of boxing, also known as the "glamour divisions": flyweight, featherweight, lightweight and welterweight.
References
1 2 IBHOF "Bob Arum", International Boxing Hall of Fame. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
↑ Gurock, Jeffrey S. Judaism's Encounter with American Sports. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2005. Print. p 159.
↑ Mulamud, Allan "Arum Unique at Reunion of His Harvard Law Class", Los Angeles Times, June 5, 1996. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
↑ Ziegel, Vic. "And in This Corner... Robert Arum." New York Magazine 28 Aug. 1978: 51.
↑ 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."
↑ Iole, Kevin "Boxing promoter Bob Arum thinks JFK was assassinated on behalf of Fidel Castro", Yahoo Sports, November 18, 2013. Retrieved August 8, 2018.
↑ Mannix, Chris "Arum, one of boxing's most powerful promoters, still hustling", Sports illustrated, December 5, 2012. Retrieved August 23, 2018.
↑ Doran, Niall "UFC president turned new boxing promoter Dana White is still sussing out the boxing landscape but has not been afraid to take a dig at two of the sport's biggest promoters", Boxing News and Views, May 29, 2018. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
↑ Campbell, Brian "Bob Arum credits marijuana as the secret to his longevity for 50 years in boxing — The Top Rank chairman, one week shy of turning 86, spoke out on the benefits of cannabis", CBS, November 30, 2017. July 27, 2018.
↑ Erdman, Corey "HOW BOB ARUM WOUND UP IN ‘THE MARIJUANA AFFAIR,’ A 70S MOVIE ABOUT WEED", FIGHTLAND BLOG, VICE, April 20, 2017. Retrieved July 27, 2018.
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