Boxing promoters traditionally have come in for a lot of flack over the years from various quarters.
Yes, some deserved and justified.
Granted.
That being said, these days, in the modern professional sports world and business some of the aforementioned is perhaps tiresome and unjustified in many instances.
It’s easy to blame the promoters for things wrong in the sport but at the end of the day it’s the fighters who are the most important in boxing.
The fighters are first and if one of the sport’s greatest heavyweight fighters ever, George Foreman, has said the following about one of boxing’s greatest ever promoters, Bob Arum, perhaps the masses should think twice when perpetuating old stereotypes about boxing promoters which have less and less reality to them in today’s corporately much more transparent sports business:
Full disclosure, I’ll admit in the past I was quick to blame old Bob for certain things wrong in boxing.
With that being said, I have to hold my hands up and concede that behind the scenes he and other promoters actually do a lot of good for the sport, believe it or not.
Sure, business is business and the game is the game.
It’s nothing personal, it’s just business at the end of the day.
But.and far, far more importantly, as pertaining to the sport of boxing, the above says a lot from Foreman really.
Directly from one of boxing’s most famed fighting sons. It speaks for itself really.
I rest my case your honor, as one might say, even. For Foreman to say that directly it’s hard for anyone to argue with it really.
As for Arum, at nearly 90 years young and still actively promoting boxing at the highest level, whatever you think of him, you have to hand it to the Hall of Famer and show respect for him still going strong at such an advanced age with his respected and world renowned company Top Rank.
