Top Rank promoter Bob Arum takes some time to chat with Marcos Villegas of Fight Hub TV to discuss his thoughts on a number of topics ranging from Canelo-Bivol, Gennadiy Golovkin getting up there in age, and DAZN making a move to PPV. Check out some excerpts of what the Hall of Famer had to say below.
Arum on his thoughts on the Canelo-Bivol fight
“I think he’s a good fighter, Bivol. I give him all the props in the world but, you know, I think Canelo is really special and I don’t think Bivol has the power to hurt Canelo. And if he can’t hurt Canelo then I can’t see how he’s gonna beat him.”
On if that same logic applies to a potential third fight against Gennadiy Golovkin
“I like Canelo huge against Golovkin, and I tell you, I would not be surprised if in April, Murata beat Golovkin. Remember, Golovkin has a lot of wear on him. He’s 40 years old, I think approximately, and Murata’s a pretty big punching guy so I wouldn’t be surprised if Golovkin lost that fight to Murata.”
On if he thinks there’s a strong possibility Canelo faces either Artur Beterbiev or Joe Smith Jr in the near future
“I never discussed it with Canelo or with Eddy Reynoso. I’m friendly with both of them but I never thought to discuss it at this particular point. Maybe next year, or a lot of part of this year if Golovkin gets himself beat, I’m happy to discuss it. But, again, you have to figure out how the signal for the fight is going to be distributed. I mean, lock it up with DAZN that nobody watches any place in the world, really, seems counterproductive.”
On DAZN pivoting towards a PPV model
“I don’t understand what their model is. I mean in the United States they’re doing PPV, I think $80 if you’re not a customer, $60 if you are a customer, and you can buy the fight on all different platforms — I mean what’s for them to do it. Yeah they get the rights for Germany, Italy, but that can’t be worth very much because the fight comes over at four, five in the morning. And UK, they’ve invested a lot of money in the UK and according to Frank Warren they don’t have 40,000 subscribers. So where are they going?
“I think the subscription model is not viable if all you’re offering a subscriber is boxing. You have to combine it with other sports and other serious things, which ESPN+ which now has 22 million subscribers has done. You go to ESPN+ you can barely find anything because there’s so much on at one time…You can have a streaming service for sports but you’ve got to have content…you can’t do it with boxing alone.”
