Bob Arum 'Sorry' for Mayweather-Pacquiao Fiasco

Top Rank promoter Bob Arum says that he's generally happy with what his company has accomplished this past year, the pinnacle of which have been seven-division champion and cross-over hit, Manny Pacquiao's two big knockout victories over Ricky Hatton, and Miguel Cotto, respectively, at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas.

There are also big things on the horizon in 2010 for WBC and WBO middleweight (160 pounds) champion, Kelly Pavlik, as well as a Jan. 23 card at Madison Square Garden featuring WBA featherweight (126 pounds) king Yuriorkis Gamboa and WBO super bantamweight (122 pounds) titlist, Juan Manuel Lopez in seperate 126-pound championship bouts.

And on Feb. 13 at the Las Vegas Hilton, WBO bantamweight (118) titlist Fernando Montiel, WBA interim super flyweight champ (115) Nonito Donaire and Puerto Rican-born former WBA flyweight (112) king Eric Morel will be part of Top Rank's Latin Fury 13-Pinoy Power III pay-per-view card.

"We're also announcing our television arrangement with Fox Sports, which is a boxing series that will appear three times a month -- two from the United States and one from Mexico -- and which will revolutionize boxing, so we do have a lot on our plates," said Arum.

"I'm just sorry that this has happened with the Manny Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather fight," said Arum. "But we're looking forward to doing something else for Manny Pacquiao on March 13."

Arum is referring to the stalled negotiations for a March Mayweather-Pacquiao fight that was scheduled for March 13 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, which would be the biggest fight in boxing history.

The bout, however, is at a negotiations impasse stemming from the Mayweather camp's insistence that both fighters adhere to Olympic-style urinalysis and blood analysis drug-testing and Pacquiao's refusal to do so.

Arum told FanHouse on Wednesday that the fight is "dead," and that Pacquiao could instead seek an unprecedented eighth crown in as many weight divisions against New York's newly-crowned WBA titlist Yuri Foreman (28-0, eight KOs), or 140-pound bouts against Mexican great Juan Manuel Marquez (50-5-1, 37 KOs) or New York's Paulie Malignaggi (27-3, five KOs).

See what else Arum told FanHouse in this Q&A.

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FanHouse: So Bob, what's going on with the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight?

Bob Arum: As far as I can see, nothing is going on with the fight. I really believe that this exposes the fact that Mayweather never had any intentions to do the fight.

I don't think that I can salvage this fight because Mayweather -- the fighter on the other side -- does not want to fight, he never wanted to fight Manny Pacquiao, and he's afraid to lose.

FH: So is the fight off, officially?

Arum: In my mind, it's dead as a door-nail, and we're starting to look, today, for other opponents. The three guys that come to mind are Yuri Foreman, Paulie Malignaggi and Juan Manuel Marquez.

FH: Does this damage Manny Pacquiao's credibility, given all that he has accomplished?

Arum: No, I don't think so.

Manny has never used drugs, never will use drugs, and is willing to take any legitimate test over the course of preparing for a fight which would demonstrate irrefutably that he doesn't and never has used drugs.

FH: Is it your understanding that the Mayweather camp, starting with his father, Floyd Sr., has accused Manny Pacquiao of steroid usage due to the fact that he's carried his power from the lowest weight class in boxing to a seventh weight class -- 147 pounds?

Arum: This whole issue has been brought up by a completley, illiterate idiot, Floyd Mayweather Sr. -- the father of a kid who doesn't want to get into the ring with Manny Pacquiao.

FH: Is it true as reported by Kevin Iole of Yahoo! Sports that Manny submitted his blood to the Nevada Commission for HIV testing between April 5 and April 20 before his fight with Ricky Hatton in May -- one of his past six fights in Las Vegas?

Arum: Yes. And Manny has passed every test that they've given him before his fights in Las Vegas.

And if the extensive testing of the kind that is done in Nevada has been good enough for everybody in Nevada for 40 years, I don't see why it should change now.

FH: Why do you believe that Manny Pacquiao agreed to the random blood sample in this abbreviated version in the first place?

Arum: Manny doesn't take anything. We we were willing to shut Floyd up to amplify it. We've been up for doing urine testing the entire time. We don't care.

We had agreed to appease Floyd Mayweather and to do the most extensive testing that could uncover any conceivable thing by doing random urinalysis and blood testing before the press conference 30 days out, and after the fight.

So there's really nothing else to do. Mayweather prattles on about Olympic drug testing, but what he proposes is not Olympic drug-testing. Olympic drug-testing has nothing to do with what he's suggesting.

No Olympic body tests for blood close to an athlete's performing. The tests for blood comes afterward, if they do it any more.

The conventional thinking by most groups involved in the Olympics is that you can do everything with urine analysis.

That's the way it's done in football, that's the way it's done in basketball, that's the way it's done in baseball. And Mayweather, in order to disconcert Pacquiao, can't turn things on its head. I won't allow it.

FH: Why do you believe that they're asking for blood testing over and above what boxing already does with it?

Arum: What they're doing is harassing Manny because they know that we won't go for it and they're trying to get out of the fight. It's as plain as the nose on my face.

He can call it Olympic testing as much as he wants, but it's not Olympic testing. And all of the writers who are going with it should do some research.

Call a doctor and get experts and get their opinions, and they'll tell you exactly what I'm telling you, because they've told me that.

FH: Do you understand, as I have been told, that any sort of masking agents that an athlete might use to cover up steroid use would be detected in the urinalysis?

Arum: Correct. That's why this diuretic that Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. used -- because he had been in the hospital to reduce his water -- that was a violation because diuretics can be used as a masking agent.

FH: Are you surprised that this fight negotiation has gone as it has considering the good run you had making big fights with Golden Boy CEO, Richard Schaefer?

Arum: Floyd Mayweather is being cottled by sycophants like Richard Schaefer, who ought to be ashamed of himself for the statements that he's made.

FH: When you replaced yourself with your stepson, Todd duBoef, in the negotiations for the fight on Dec. 10, is that when you first detected that you would have more trouble putting this fight together than you may have realized?

Arum: When I was involved in the negotiations, I saw that Mayweather was throwing up obstacles because he really didn't want the fight.

I don't remember the first obstacle, maybe it was when they wouldn't go to Dallas. That's when I first knew that this was the beginning of exercises for Floyd Mayweather to try to find a way out of the fight.

That's why Richard Schaefer didn't want to waste his time going to Dallas.

FH: If you could get Richard Schaefer behind close doors, out of the public, and look him in the eyes, man-to-man, what would you say to him right now?

Arum: I would tell him, 'Richard, your true colors have come out. You were supposed to be an honorable person.

But to pander to this person and to support this, Floyd Mayweather Jr. -- who it's clear that he's trying to kill a fight because he doesn't want to fight -- you ought to be ashamed of yourself.'