Bob Arum Wants To Hold Boxing Events At The WWE Performance Center
After it was revealed that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had declared Vince McMahon’s WWE as an ‘essential business’, it got the attention of combat sports fans all around the world. As well as the news giving hope to UFC fans that live fights could be back sooner than we thought, it could also spell good news for the boxing community. Long time boxing promoter Bob Arum, was quick to jump in.
Speaking to ESPN (as transcribed by The Mac Life), Arum confirmed that he plans to contact McMahon about putting on some boxing events at the WWE’s Performance Center in Orlando, Florida.
“It’s very, very interesting, and we’re going to be in touch with them. There’s a possibility to use their facility to maybe do events without a crowd.”
Arum and McMahon built a good relationship last year, when the heavyweight boxing world champion Tyson Fury made a guest appearance last year at a WWE event in Saudi Arabia.
“We’re very close with Vince and the WWE.”
Arum recently criticised UFC president Dana White for pushing on with his events in spite of the current global pandemic. And while the Top Rank CEO is keen to get his shows back up and running, he won’t do so until it’s safe to do so.
“But it all depends, the whole reopening of the country, the different states, it all comes down to the same thing — testing, adequate testing. You cannot open it and have athletes compete against each other with referees, the judges, with camera people, unless you can ensure that it’s safe, and the only way you can ensure that it’s safe is with testing. It comes down to testing.”
Yesterday, Dana announced that the UFC will return on May 9th with a stacked card from top to bottom, and featuring three title fights. Bob Arum however, thinks we will have to wait for the fans to return to the arenas, before we see the big blockbusters inside the boxing ring.
“Those are either going to have to wait ’til you have spectators, or if the fighters get antsy, they will have to deal with an adjustment in their purses because you will have cut off an important revenue source from the event. For example, Fury and Wilder, the gate was close to $17 million, and that’s from the public buying tickets to the fight. How do you replace that? Well, if you don’t replace it, then somebody has to eat that.”
Do you think MMA and boxing should carry on with big shows, even without the fans in attendance?
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