Bob Arum embarrasses boxing and its fans

Since Dana White throwing a bitchy little verbal slap at the Mayweather-Marquez fight was enough to raise my ire, let me tell you something: This is a lot worse. Bob Arum has thoughts, consarnit, like Floyd Mayweather is a pansy and MMA is "guys rolling around like homosexuals on the ground," and its fans are "a bunch of skinhead white guys."

This is an embarrassment to boxing, its fans, and it should in some ways be condemnation of Arum as a human being. What Dana White did was catty, and he's had worse offenses in the past, but Arum's weird gay-bashing rant here -- while simultaneously accusing fans of MMA of being "skinheads" -- goes way too far.

Bob Arum is a 77-year old man. He's a good businessman and a good boxing promoter, if you believe there's any such thing as the latter. I'm going to generalize -- since hey, why not? -- and assume the elderly, cantankerous Arum isn't the world's biggest fan of gay rights. JUST A GUESS. Call me crazy. And I'm not an overly PC guy, but this is ignorant and, frankly, it's shameful. Arum sounds like every stupid ass man-child that you can find on every boxing (and MMA, to be fair) board on the internet. It's detestable, it's ugly, and it's dumb. It's stupid on every single level.

If you don't like MMA, great, fine, but what is this obsession with the alleged "rolling around" and how "gay" it is? "That's gay and they roll around." Thanks for the insight, genius.

If boxing were a mainstream sport -- and guys like Bob Arum are a big reason it's not -- this comment would not fly. Since he's operating in a niche business, he'll get away with it, life will go on, and people will act like this is an acceptable way for a man to behave. It's not. Arum is an idiot. Simple as that.

Here's the full video, courtesy Fanhouse and interviewer Ariel Helwani:

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On a less important note, what I've expected also seems clear: Bob Arum isn't going to let Manny Pacquiao fight Floyd Mayweather. The Arum-Mayweather grudge is very real. For people that think that fight is happening in 2010 if both win in 2009, don't hold your breath. You're more likely to see either man fight Shane Mosley or even rematch Ricky Hatton.