Bob Arum - Controversies

Controversies

While working as a boxing promoter, Arum had been involved in many feuds and controversies.

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 withdrew his fighters as no purses were forthcoming. John Daly blamed Arum when he said, "I've tried desperately to convince my partners to keep the faith. I offered them as much security as I could but it was not quite good enough. It seems I was ready to take the shots, but Mr Arum wasn't."

He has been involved in a forty year feud with Don King, who called him a "rat fink" in 2000 for admitting during a federal trial that he bribed the International Boxing Federation president in order to gain a more favorable rating for one of his fighters.

He was penalized $125,000 by the Nevada State Athletic Commission in 1995 for a bribe to get one of his fights sanctioned.

In 2003, Arum complained about the 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 apologized for the remark which commission chairman Luther Mack accepted.

On 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 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 that 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, Floyd Mayweather Jr., who Arum promoted from 1996–2006, accused him of both underpaying and undermarketing him while exploiting his talents and manipulating officials.

In 2007, UFC president Dana White accused him of "sucking the life out of the sport (boxing) and not putting anything back in." Amongst White's criticisms were that Arum had created a weak undercard for the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight in 2007 saying Arum did not promote the show correctly. "He promoted that show completely the wrong way, because he worried about the money as opposed to trying to secure the future", White said. "He should have stacked that card. He should have had Shane Mosley and Bernard Hopkins and (Marco Antonio) Barrera and Winky Wright on there and used it to show that boxing is back". Arum responded by saying that MMA fighters need to examine the revenues being generated and ask why the UFC wasn't paying them more.

Arum also filed a lawsuit HBO for overstepping its boundaries in the sport by becoming a defacto promoter while trying to intentionally eliminate him as a promoter. Arum complained that HBO dropped Floyd Mayweather Jr. 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."

In 2009, Arum defended Antonio Margarito when he lost his boxing license in the US state of California on charges of illegal hand wraps, implied it was racially motivated and stated that Top Rank would not come back to the state of California until the issue was rectified.

In late-2009, Arum called UFC fans "skinhead white guys". Bas Rutten accused him of racism for this remark. Arum also stated that MMA fighters are "guys rolling around like homosexuals on the ground." Earlier in the year, Arum described UFC President Dana White as "nuts" and "a little too much of a loose cannon" for White's use of a gay slur in reference to an MMA reporter.