Arum: The UFC is the enemy of boxing
Bob Arum: “We have an enemy, we have a villain, and it’s the UFC. If we all work together we can beat the UFC, which is a sport that can not be compared to boxing.”
MMA fans by and large admire and respect boxing. The love is not returned by the leading promoter in the sweet science, Bob Arum, and never has been.
“Our audience in boxing is ethnic,” he said to Ariel Helwani in 2009. “Hispanic, Filipino, Puerto Rican, Mexican, and the hardcore boxing fan who can’t watch … like me … can’t watch UFC. UFC are a bunch of skinhead white guys watching people in the ring who also look like skinhead white guys.”
“For me, and people like me, it is not something they ever care to see. They’ve watched it. It’s horrible. Guys rolling around like homosexuals on the ground. It is not a sport that shows great, great talent.”
Last year his characterization of MMA fans had evolved from gay-loving, racist, skinheads to something topical.
“One thing I’ve said, and I’ll say again, I’ll say it straight out — the fans of the UFC are Donald Trump supporters,” said Arum, as transcribed by Miguel Rivera for Boxing Scene. “The fans of boxing support Hillary, Bernie, and maybe John Kasich, so there’s a difference. The preponderance of UFC fans are Trump supporters — white males who are desperately afraid that this country in 20 years will be a non-white majority country. And that’s why they’re reacting, and that’s why they’re supporting an imbecile like Trump. And maybe that’s why they like UFC.”
Arum spoke recently with ESPN Deportes and offered his latest witless characterization.
“We have an enemy, we have a villain, and it’s the UFC,” he said. “If we all work together we can beat the UFC, which is a sport that can not be compared to boxing.
“I remember many years ago when boxing was a sport that received the same attention as the other major sports in the United States… there was no way that you did not have a boxing reporter [working at every major newspaper] – and with the collaboration of everyone we can bring boxing back to the position that it deserves.”
The collaboration Arum refers to is a multi-year television deal he signed with ESPN; he’s willing to allow other promoters to showcase their events too, he says. That will not change any of the central problems with boxing, which include an incalculable number of champions, and the inability to evolve as social media becomes dominant.Dana White has 4.79 million Twitter followers; Bob Arum has 36.7 thousand. Arum is ranting about the lack of newspaper coverage, while newspapers are dead. The enemy of boxing is not the UFC, it’s sputtering, greedy, visionless dinosaurs like Bob Arum.
