Arum Slams The New York Times

June 17th, 2009

The New York Times apparently does not respect boxing. The giant newspaper aggravated many ring followers when it opted to completely ignore the Zab Judah-Carlos Baldomir Welterweight Championship held at Madison Square Garden a few years ago. That decision by The Times seemed illogical because Judah was born and raised in New York and was making a defense of the undisputed welterweight championship on his own home turf. But The New York Times decided to not write anything about that fight, not before or after. In other words, Times readers would not have known there was a world welterweight title fight in New York City that week, if they read the sports pages of The Times.

Last week Bob Arum took some shots at The New York Times for the continued lack of coverage of professional boxing. “Boxing is not dying,” insisted the legendary promoter. “The sport is not dying. In January at the Staples Center – during a recession – we had a complete sellout (Mosley vs. Margarito). February in Youngstown, Ohio, we had a complete sellout (Pavlik vs. Rubio). They had the biggest crowd ever in the arena, more people went to the Pavlik fight than went to see a concert by John Mellencamp. There was a complete sellout in Las Vegas at Pacquiao and Hatton – between two non-Americans. Boxing is not dying.”

Arum continued: “The New York Times hasn’t written an article about boxing in a year. The New York Times is an elitist paper. They think boxing is dying. But they had to borrow $200 million from a Mexican.”

One thing is for sure, Bob Arum won’t have to be borrowing $200, $20 or even $1 million from anyone to keep his thriving business afloat, as the promoter is said to be extremely wealthy, not to mention, he’s the promoter of boxing superstars and gate attractions Manny Pacquiao and Miguel Angel Cotto.

Maybe The New York Times should be listening to Bob Arum on how to run it’s business these days.

Scoop Malinowski’s first book “Heavyweight Armageddon: The Tyson-Lewis Championship Battle” was called “A smashing success,” by Emanuel Steward, “One of the two best boxing books I’ve ever read.”