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Friday, September 17, 1999
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
COLUMN: Royce Feour
Arum, King put on good show, but will never be pals
It was amusing to hear promoters Bob Arum and Don King compliment each other at the final news conference for the Oscar De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad fight.
Arum paid tribute to King by saying the De La Hoya-Trinidad welterweight championship unification fight Saturday night at Mandalay Bay would not have happened if Trinidad's promoter had been anyone other than King.
Arum thanked King for his cooperation "in making the most spectacular event in boxing."
The bombastic King referred to Arum as his "fellow Hall of Famer" and said it was a "pleasure and delight" to work with Arum on what King said was by far the biggest non-heavyweight fight in history.
King even said: "Make Arum rich. He needs the money. I give all the credit to Bob Arum."
And, financially, it will be the biggest non-heavyweight fight in history, generating as much as $80 million in revenue.
But before anybody believes Arum and King have formed a mutual admiration society, relax. It will never happen. Far from it.
Of course, they got together for the De La Hoya-Trinidad fight for profit and not for friendship. Actually, Arum is the promoter for Saturday's fight, and King's only roles were to supply Trinidad and show up at a few news conferences.
Arum, of Las Vegas, was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame this year. King, who has a home in Las Vegas but maintains his headquarters in Deerfield Beach, Fla., entered the Hall of Fame a couple of years ago.
I remember a physical confrontation between Arum and King at the Sugar Ray Leonard-Marvin Hagler fight at the outdoor stadium at Caesars Palace in 1987.
The Leonard-Hagler fight was Arum's biggest promotion in his career, and he was justifiably proud of putting it on.
So what happened? After the fight, in which Leonard took a close decision, King tried to climb in the ring. Arum pulled him back down. At the time, many of us in press row thought, "Good for Arum." What the heck was King trying to do, getting in the ring in the first place? It wasn't his promotion.
A Caesars Palace security guard broke up the tussle between Arum and King.
"(King) called the security guard an 'Uncle Tom' ... " Arum said.
Arum said he pulled King off the steps to the ring because King had done the same thing before. It was at the Muhammad Ali-Leon Spinks heavyweight championship rematch in New Orleans in 1978, which Arum promoted.
"After the fight was over, I looked up in the ring, and there is King with his arm around Ali like he is the promoter," Arum said.
Arum was asked what King's legacy will be.
"I think he will be remembered as a guy who promoted major fights," Arum said. "He will also be remembered as a guy who was a real detriment to boxing. He will be remembered as a guy who tried to get the (boxing) organizations, after Buster Douglas knocked out Mike Tyson, to change the result."
Arum said King would have a place in history as the promoter of the first Evander Holyfield-Lennox Lewis heavyweight championship fight in New York on March 13. In that fight, IBF judge Eugenia Williams of Atlantic City voted for Holyfield, and the fight came out a draw even though Lewis clearly won.
Arum also said King would go down as the promoter for the controversial Julio Cesar Chavez-Pernell Whitaker welterweight title fight in 1993 in San Antonio. That bout also was scored a draw although Whitaker unquestionably won.
Predictably, King has a different viewpoint.
"My strength as a promoter is to create the magic of excitement," King said. "My magic lies in my people's ties. That is not a cliche. That is a fact. I can walk with kings, but yet keep the common touch. I can deal with the elite, but I am one of the masses, not the classes. I can relate and identify to people. I am a people person."
But the slings and arrows go both ways.
King conceded he called Arum the "Apostle of Apartheid" many years ago.
"Yes," King said, "when he was running down there to South Africa. When there was full-blooded apartheid going on and he was aiding, abetting and supporting it with his deeds. And it was self-serving. .... When you get to 'Lonesome Bob,' I don't even want to think about those days."
King also brought up the old line about Arum. ''Today he is telling the truth. Yesterday he was lying, or however that goes," King said.
That story infuriates Arum, who said he was drinking and joking around with friends and his staff when that was said.
Royce Feour's boxing column is published Friday and Sunday. He can be reached by phone at 383-0354, by fax at 383-4676 or by e-mail at Royce_Feour@lvrj.com.
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