By Dan Rafael


GRAPEVINE, Texas — They say everything is bigger in Texas, and Top Rank promoter Bob Arum thinks big.

So it seemed only natural that Arum, along with his new best buddy, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, would get together to put on a fight at Jones’ spectacular $1.2 billion Cowboys Stadium in Arlington.

That is where welterweight titleholder and pound-for-pound king Manny Pacquiao will face former titleholder Joshua Clottey on Saturday night (HBO PPV, 9 ET, $49.95) in a fight that Arum considers one of the crowning achievements of his storied 44-year career as a boxing promoter.

The reason is simple: location, location, location.

Pacquiao-Clottey is certainly a significant fight just based on the involvement of Pacquiao, boxing’s biggest worldwide star. But the stadium also plays a major role in generating interest.

“Much of the buzz is because it’s at Cowboys Stadium. Of course, it’s Manny Pacquiao, but it’s also Cowboys Stadium,” said Bill Caplan, Arum’s longtime publicist and boxing lifer.

Said HBO senior vice president Mark Taffet, who runs HBO PPV, “I’ve been involved in nearly 160 pay-per-view events since 1991 with HBO PPV. This is the first pay-per-view fight we are doing in a stadium, so it’s a totally unique experience for us. From a business perspective, as you know, Pacquiao-Clottey is called ‘The Event,’ so there was very specific recognition about the importance of Cowboys Stadium and what we believed that this stadium was bringing to the table.”

That’s exactly what Arum hoped for when he talked to Jones about getting away from the same old, same old casino fights.

“I am really, really excited,” Arum said. “You get stale doing the same thing over and over again, going back to the casinos to put on these big events. With this event going to a fabulous, fabulous stadium like Cowboys Stadium, we’re bringing the fights to the people. I think boxing can once again establish its place among the major sports in this country as it is in so many places in the world.”

Promoting fights in major arenas is not new for Arum, but it’s been awhile. And now he is happy to return and do it at Cowboys Stadium, where a crowd of 45,000 is expected.

“He’s been promoting for 40-something years and this really gets his juices flowing,” Caplan said. “It recharges Bob’s battery. It’s huge in a business way and in a psychological way for Bob. The interest and the enthusiasm never ends if you do new things.”

Arum promoted the first fight at the Houston Astrodome, then considered an architectural marvel, when Muhammad Ali defended the heavyweight championship against Cleveland Williams in 1966.

“That building just blew me away. I had never seen anything like it before in my life, the suites, the amenities, there was nothing like it in the world,” Arum said. “Now it’s 44 years later and I’m back in another part of Texas. Cowboys Stadium is the most phenomenal building I have ever been in. Words really can’t describe it, from that big screen [the stunning 72-foot high, 160-foot wide, $40 million HD video board] to the restaurants to the electronics. It is something really, really special. So it is a really great honor for me to be the first one to do a fight at the Astrodome and the first person to do a fight in Cowboys Stadium. I love that. … It’s just thrilling.”

Besides opening the Astrodome to boxing, he also promoted what turned out to be the final fight at old Yankee Stadium when Ali defended the title against Ken Norton in 1976.

Two years later, Arum promoted the first fight at the Superdome in New Orleans, where Ali regained the title from Leon Spinks in a 15-round decision in front of more than 63,000 fans.

Arum’s last major stadium fight came in 1998, when he brought Oscar De La Hoya’s mandatory welterweight title defense against Patrick Charpentier to the Sun Bowl in El Paso, Texas. That fight, a massive mismatch, still drew more than 40,000, in large part because of the exotic location.

And on June 5, Arum will promote the first fight at the new Yankee Stadium, where junior middleweight titlist Yuri Foreman will defend his belt for the first time, against Miguel Cotto.

Arum considers the Cowboy Stadium fight a significant part of his legacy, on par with those other major events.

“There are certain milestones that you have in your career that you look back on that were very significant,” Arum said. “Doing the first fight in the Astrodome, the last fight at the old Yankee Stadium, doing the first one at the Superdome. Those are significant. This to me is equally as significant, opening up this magnificent facility to boxing.”

Perhaps it is more significant because of how long it’s taken him to return to a major stadium. For the past few years, he has talked almost incessantly about putting on a fight in a stadium. He talked about it so often without it coming off that he began to sound like the boy who cried wolf.

Arum had talked with officials of the San Francisco Giants about hosting a fight, and it went nowhere. Same with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

He also continually floated the idea of a final fight at old Yankee Stadium before it closed without pulling it off. Then when the new stadium opened, he was at it again, finally closing a much-discussed deal with the Yankees last week for Cotto-Foreman.

“I tried both places [San Francisco and Los Angeles] and the people I was dealing with wanted to do it on my dime and wanted me to pay the cost of doing one of these fights, which made it economically not feasible,” Arum said. “But Jerry is paying me to come here and he will get his costs back. And the Yankees are giving me a guarantee and then they get their costs back, so it is economically feasible to do it in both places.”

Promoting Pacquiao-Clottey at Cowboys Stadium became a reality when Arum got together with Jones, who has landed several major events for his lavish facility, including last month’s NBA All-Star Game (which drew more than 100,0000) as well as a future Super Bowl and NCAA Final Four.

Arum and Jones, a boxing fan, originally hoped to bring the Pacquiao-Floyd Mayweather fight to the stadium Saturday. However, the Mayweather/Golden Boy Promotions side rejected it, despite a record $25 million guarantee from Jones (who put up about $6 million for Pacquiao-Clottey).

Mayweather and Golden Boy insisted the fight take place at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas, which has long been where most of boxing’s biggest fights take place.
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