Now control freak Floyd has fallen out of love with boxing
SAYS LEGENDARY PROMOTER ARUM
THE granddaddy of all boxing promoters and Manny Pacquiao’s personal Svengali has unlocked the complex mystery that is Floyd Mayweather.
Bob Arum found the key to Mayweather’s obsession with money, fame and power in a near-century-old work of literature. ‘If you want to understand Floyd,’ he says, ‘read Emperor Jones.’
While not the best known play by Eugene O’Neill, The Emperor Jones was the iconic American author’s first success. It is from this dark concoction of 1920s expressionism and dense realism that Arum draws his parallel with Mayweather’s lavish spending and resentment of authority.
It tells the story of an African-American who is sentenced to prison but escapes to a Caribbean island, there to install himself as emperor. ‘He is a megalomaniac who has to have his own way in everything,’ says Arum. ‘Even though he is not capable. The only voice he listens to is his own. It does not end well. These things never do.’
There are several scenes in the play in which Jones is the only speaker. Ultimately his subjects rebel and he is shot dead by a silver bullet, the only means by which they believe this god-like figure can be destroyed. ‘I don’t think anyone would deny that Floyd is a control freak,’ says Arum.
So will Pacquiao be the one to fire the silver bullet in Las Vegas on May 2? If so, Arum hopes it will be so decisive that it will kill the prospect of a rematch, ‘no matter how big the money’.
Arum adds: ‘It was only by giving Floyd everything he wanted that we got this thing done. But it’s still been so difficult dealing with his team.It takes them three weeks to answer an email, for God’s sake. I really don’t want to go through this nonsense all over again.’
Nor is Arum confident that the man who calls himself Money will be available. He says: ‘I’m not sure Floyd will fight again, especially if he loses to Manny. Sure, he likes the money and the lifestyle and the limelight. But I don’t see him enjoying boxing any more.
‘This is the biggest fight of the modern era but he’s not embracing the promotion. Whereas Manny is excited and we have to hold him back from doing too much media.’
The five years it took to bring this Fight of the Century to fruition was ‘taxing enough’. But it has been the bickering over such matters as each side’s allocation of the hottest tickets in ring history which has exasperated Arum far more than his long-running rivalry with Don King. Between them these two octogenarians promoted many of the biggest fights of the last half-century. Arum burst upon the scene with Ali-Frazier I, King with the Ali-Foreman Rumble in the Jungle. Some friction was inevitable.
Arum has emerged as the great survivor who is engaged in staging the Mayweather-Pacquiao extravaganza. King has been left clinging to the fringes of the hard old game. Now Arum says: ‘It was a lot simpler working with Don. Partly because we’re different. Don is very loud, bombastic and loquacious. But he never paid any attention to detail. He would do much of the talking — sometimes for hours on end — but he would send a lot of stuff over for us to take care of. He would want to give his approval but mostly he was happy. If there was a clash of opinion we would work it out.’
Arum tends to resist comparisons with great fights of yore because such advances as payper-view television have altered the playing field.
BUT while the memories are glittering he does concede: ‘The first Ali-Frazier fight in Madison Square Garden was huge. All the celebrities. All the expectation. How big would that have been with the outlets we have today?
‘The world stopped. It is stopping again now for this fight but I don’t think any fight will ever be as big as that one. It had the great advantage of… Muhammad Ali. My favourite fight of what we call the golden age — with Leonard, Hearns, Duran, Hagler — was Leonard v Hagler. That was huge too, yet I recognise that Mayweather-Pacquiao is blowing even that one away now.’
Arum holds Hagler in much affection. ‘Wonderful fighter. Wonderful man,’ he said. ‘Loyal. Not a mean bone in his body. Didn’t get the decision against Sugar Ray Leonard but I still believe he won by two rounds. But, no, he didn’t have that magic of Ali. Who does? Except, to a large extent, Manny. Especially in their feeling for humanity.’
Pacquaio’s generosity to the Filipino people is legendary and Arum says: ‘I would never dream of telling him to cut back on that. He’s a good man and that’s none of my business. I did say something when he was gambling so heavily that I would get phone calls from casinos from Australia to Las Vegas asking me to send forty or fifty grand fast.
‘The drinking wasn’t a real problem but I asked if he felt he should be throwing away money on betting and womanising. I take no credit for how he changed so dramatically. Re-found God. Went from being a former Catholic to an Evangelical Christian. It was Manny who realised he had to give himself back to his wife, his family.’
It also means Arum may have to work longer than he expected. Pacquiao has set out an agenda of three fights after this one in two years but in Freddie Roach’s gym the other day he told Arum: ‘I feel so good I think I can fight till I’m 40.’
Arum said: ‘God, four more years. I’ll be 87. But I’m doing something I enjoy. In the end, it is great fun.’
So what will be Mayweather’s legacy if Pacquiao ends his unbeaten record? Arum smiles but says nothing. You have to suspect he is thinking along the lines of ... The Emperor With No Clothes. THE man widely considering the world’s leading referee will take charge of the fight. The appointment of Kenny Bayless, who has refereed Mayweather and Pacquiao before, will be welcomed by both camps. Arum says: ‘Bayless is the best out there.’