In this video interview with Marcos Villegas of Fight Hub TV, Top Rank promoter Bob Arum talks a bit more about Manny Pacquiao parting ways with his company to work with rival Al Haymon.
Arum on his personal feelings about Pacquiao defecting to Al Haymon:
“Manny is really close to my heart. I love him and I wish him well. But at this point in time in his career, with the problems of fighting in the United States and other problems, we couldn’t do anything for him that made sense. Whether Haymon can or can’t, remains to be seen.
“Haymon promised him a fight with Mayweather. Good or bad, if that happens he’ll make some money. I wish him only the best. Really. We came to an end but it was not an end that was antagonistic, it was very amicable, we wished each other well, and I only wish for the best for him.”
On what he means by he didn’t have anything to offer Pacquiao when he tried to line up a fight that Pacquiao rejected (against Mike Alvarado):
“No! We couldn’t offer him fights unless they were in the United States. And we couldn’t solve the problem of the fights being in the United States with the IRS — with what he owed. I don’t wanna go into it, a lot of it’s confidential. So then the question is: where can we do a significant Manny Pacquiao fight where we can make money at the gate and put it on primetime in the United States, losing all the build-up? And the issue is, we couldn’t!
“And then the problem is, even if we solved the problem — tax problem in the United States and he came over here — he would come over for one or two weeks. And then if he came over, you couldn’t get him on television because everybody remembers the anti-gay thing, and they don’t want him around. So, it was very, very difficult.
“Now maybe somebody can take that and turn it into money for him, and I only hope that’s the case, but we couldn’t. We couldn’t! We tried every which way, we thought of every which way, and there was no way we could solve the problem. We had him in Australia, remember, but there was no real way that we could generate money for him.”
On the word being that Pacquiao will face Adrien Broner and if he thinks that’s a competitive fight:
“Who cares?! I couldn’t care less. As long as he makes some money, I’m happy.”