Bob Arum: HBO abandoned Pacquiao after sucking him dry for 10 years

After HBO recently declined to distribute Manny Pacquiao's Nov. 5 pay-per-view fight against Jessie Vargas, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum became incensed. In fact he's quoted in the LA Times as accusing the network of "abandoning" Pacquiao "after sucking him dry for 10 years."

Now Arum is considering self-distributing the fight or taking it to another network since he believes HBO's refusal to carry the card invalidates Pacquiao's contract with the network.

"The fact that they passed means the contract is over, it seems clear to me. They can't pick and choose which fights they are going to distribute. They're either in breach of contract or they've ended the contract. My feeling is, based my legal background, is that the contract is terminated."

HBO, on the other hand, believes that their existing contract with Pacquiao still stands, although they would not publicly comment on the disagreement otherwise.

The network reportedly declined to carry the fight because they are already committed to hosting a Kovalev-Ward PPV showdown on Nov. 19th, and would prefer for Pacquiao to fight on Oct. 29 instead. Unfortunately Arum says Pacquiao has to fight around his Philippine Senate schedule which effectively makes other fight dates impossible.

"Don't they understand his schedule is based on the [Philippine] Senate?" Arum asked.

"And somebody should remind [HBO] how many Philippine American subscribers they have - who aren't going to take kindly to this."

Arum continues by saying that HBO has no right to object to the date since he's putting up the money as the promoter while the network bears no risk. He also claims the their contract with the network clearly states that only Pacquiao's opponent has to be mutually agreed upon by both sides, not the date. But if Arum does in fact take the fight to another network, it seems likely that it will result in some sort of litigation between the parties.