Bob Arum: From Law School To Boxing Legend

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GUY RAZ, host:

One of the biggest most lucrative fights of the year happens tonight in Las Vegas. Miguel Cotto takes on Manny Pacquiao for the World Welterweight championship. And the man who's making it all happen is legendary boxing promoter Bob Arum.

Over a period of 40 years in the sport, Arum has worked with the likes of Muhammad Ali, George Foreman and Sugar Ray Leonard. But he had an unlikely start in boxing. Back in 1961, Arum was a government lawyer working for Robert Kennedy's Justice Department. He had been ordered to seize the money from a crooked fight.

When I caught up with him earlier this week, Arum said he hadn't planned a career in the ring, but then the nation of Islam hired him to be Muhammad Ali's lawyer.

Mr. BOB ARUM (Boxing promoter): I was interviewed by the Honorable Elijah Muhammad.

RAZ: Oh, the head of the Nation of Islam.

Mr. ARUM: Yeah. They selected me as Ali's lawyer and they asked me to promote this particular fight and that was the first fight that I ever saw in person and it was the heavyweight championship of the world which I promoted.

RAZ: Of course, Muhammad Ali was the heavyweight champion of the world. A lot of the fighters that you promote now are - physically are smaller guys. What sort of happened to all the star heavyweights?

Mr. ARUM: Well, understand that in boxing, when I got into the business, a lineman in the NFL was getting paid $6,000 a season. That's no longer the case. Where are the great heavyweights today? They're in the NFL and the NBA.

RAZ: Aha. Bob Arum, fair or unfairly, boxing has a reputation for being a kind of a dirty business. It's Las Vegas, there's a lot of backroom deals going on. I mean, you're, as you describe yourself, a Harvard-trained lawyer. You worked for the Justice Department, but you got into a business that, you know, requires sometimes cutting deals that might not be so, you know, I guess kosher, right?

Mr. ARUM: First thing I will have to say to you is I resent that reference to Las Vegas. Las Vegas is a clean city, the days of Bugsy Siegel, and modalities, and the mob in Las Vegas is ancient history. Secondly, yeah, boxing sometimes has unseemly things in the backrooms but less and less. Nobody is perfect, myself included. And in my 40-year period, I have been guilty of a misstep or two. That is true, but that is not what really evaluates my career.

RAZ: Bob Arum, boxing has a lot of competition these days from things like mixed martial arts, what we know as the Ultimate Fighting Championship and so on. What's your sense of mixed martial arts? I mean, it's gaining in popularity at the expense of boxing?

Mr. ARUM: No. You see, the UFC has done a magnificent job of promotion but their product is very very limited as far as their audience is concern. Demographically, it's primarily aimed at young white males. Our sport caters to a vast audience, people who love the sport of boxing and it particularly caters to the ethnic groups that these fighters represent; Manny Pacquiao, the Filipinos, whether in the Philippines or in the United States, live and die for his exploits. Miguel Cotto, the Puerto Rican sensation, has a vast following of Puerto Ricans.

Boxing on Mexican television is the highest rated show and it's even exceeding the ratings for soccer, and that's true in Germany, it's true in France, it's true in England and it's going to become true again in the United States because the sponsors are now realizing the impact of boxing and they're coming back to boxing and that'll get boxing back on terrestrial television.

RAZ: That's boxing promoter Bob Arum. He joined us from his office in Las Vegas.

Bob Arum, thank you so much.

Mr. ARUM: It's been a pleasure. I really enjoyed talking to you. Maybe we'll do it again some time.

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