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Whether or not Golden Boy Promotions can gather up all the resources necessary to pay Juan Manuel Marquez at least $5 million for a fight that would block his preferred trilogy bout with Manny Pacquiao is up in the air. Golden Boy CEO Richard Schaefer and Top Rank head Bob Arum are offering very different takes on where HBO -- the network Golden Boy would need to help -- would care to back a fight between Marquez and Victor Ortiz.
From the Los Angeles Times:
Regarding the finances, Schaefer said he was confident Golden Boy could secure a $5-million payday for Marquez, saying, "I'm sure HBO would be on board" to help finance the bout.
From the sounds of it, Schaefer's idea is to put Ortiz vs Marquez on a September 17 pay-per-view, with Saul "Canelo" Alvarez also on the card. Given that that weekend always has something big from Mexican boxing, if you put all the other nonsense aside, a card with Ortiz vs Marquez at an acceptable weight and Alvarez fighting would likely do at least pretty well. Obviously it's not going to do Pacquiao or Mayweather numbers, but it would likely do well.
But Arum says tells Lem Satterfield he hears otherwise:
"When Richard said that HBO was going to finance him and so forth, that's just not true. You can check with HBO. They are not going to finance the Marquez-Ortiz fight. That's just not true. I got calls from HBO saying categorically that wasn't true," Arum told BoxingScene.com.
So either Arum's making things up to make Golden Boy's weird and likely meaningless (from their end) push to block Pacquiao vs Marquez seem even stupider, or HBO really has no interest in what they very well may look at and see as a gross physical mismatch with the potential to be a real piece of crap fight if you accept the fact that Marquez is too little and is going to be 38 soon. If you were to look at it that way, that's the type of pay-per-view that their suddenly struggling boxing brand cannot really tolerate right now. HBO isn't in, like, immediate danger or anything, but their image has taken a hit this year while Showtime's profile has risen considerably. They really can't afford stinkers, and might see Ortiz vs Marquez as something not worth the risk, especially at such a high price for a fight that could be successful, but not blockbuster successful.