By Norm Frauenheim–
Boxing returns to a place Saturday that helped re-define the business in a way that allowed it to move beyond the Sugar Ray Leonard generation and into an era without the heavyweight division as its flagship.
Welcome back to The Forum.
It also was nicknamed the House of Upsets, which might mean trouble for favored Juan Manuel Marquez against Mike Alvarado if contractors didn’t remove that legacy in the $35-million remake of the old arena near LAX.
It’s a good fight, but Top Rank’s return to the building is more intriguing for historical significance and perhaps coincidence.
“This is going to be a great night and a fight that is really important for boxing,’’ said Top Rank’s Bob Arum, who during a conference call also said The Forum was “a venue that helped make boxing as popular as it is today.’’
Note that Arum did not say boxing was as popular as it was the last time it was there. Nobody would. Or could. Arum promoted Muhammad Ali, the most legendary name of all, in a decision over Ken Norton at The Forum in a Sept. 10, 1973 bout that drew 12,417 customers for a live gate of $476,750, a California record that stood for 27 years.
“That was what? Forty-one years ago,’’ Arum joked. “Oh my, I was a thin, young handsome guy. Now, I’m an old fat guy.’’
But the memories are as keen as ever for Arum, who at 82 finds himself confronted by decisions about where to go and what to do. Maybe the answers are in China or with boxers from Kazakhstan, Russia and The Ukraine. It’s hard to know. But it’s becoming abundantly clear that change is on the horizon.
The Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. era is near its end. HBO’s pay-per-view numbers for Pacquiao’s rematch victory over Timothy Bradley on April 12 were reported to be between 750,000 and 800,000, down from the 890,000 for their first fight in 2012.
As of Thursday, there was still no news on Showtime’s PPV number for Mayweather’s difficult decision over Marcos Maidana on May 3. However, there were indications that it might not reach the one-million mark, a Mayweather standard.
Barring a Mayweather-Maidana surprise, the numbers, although still strong, are short of expectations. No matter how you add them up, it’s impossible to subtract public exasperation at never getting Mayweather-Pacquiao. Consequences have come home to roost.
If there’s any good news, it’s in boxing’s proven resiliency. The Forum is a symbol of that. From 1968 through 1999, the Forum was an entry point for Mexican and Mexican-American fighters. A fight in The Forum was a good introduction to the American market. With them, there were fans. Ruben Olivares and Carlos Zarate drew bigger crowds than Ali.
Olivares’ fifth-round knockout of Australian Lionel Rose in a 1969 rematch drew 18,408, The Forum’s biggest boxing crowd ever. In 1970, Olivares won a decision over Chuchu Castillo in front of 18,141. In 1977, Carlos Zarate scored a fourth-round stoppage of Alphonso Zarate in front of 13,971. They were little guys, bantamweights.
They got smaller and in the nick of time. Heavyweight Mike Tyson was in prison for rape and Leonard’s career was all but finished in the wake of a loss to Terry Norris when Michael Carbajal and Humberto Gonzalez met at The Forum. They were 108 pounds in a division sometimes called light-flyweight, a redundancy if there ever was one. But their impact at the box-office was big.
A crowd of 10,333 showed up on Feb, 19, 1994 for a Forum rematch of their 2003 Fight of the Year, won by Carbajal, who got up twice to score a seventh-round stoppage at the Las Vegas Hilton.
Gonzalez, who made his name at The Forum after beginning his career at home in Mexico City, won a debatable split decision in the second of three fights between the two. But the real history in their first rematch was in the purse.
Arum paid Carbajal $1 million, which then made him the lightest ever to collect the milestone purse. Carbajal’s victory in the first bout had given him leverage in negotiations. To get the $1 million, however, Arum told him he had to fight Gonzalez at what was then called The Great Western Forum. On the scorecards, Carbajal, who also lost the third fight a narrow decision in Don King-promoted bout in Mexico City, might have paid for that move.
“Michael fought Gonzalez in his living room and then fought him in his kitchen,’’ said ex-Forum broadcaster and fighter Ruben Castillo, who called his friend’s second loss “The Great Western Rip-off.”
At The Forum, however, Arum confirmed what had been evident for many years. There was a new market for fights at weights that promoters had always ignored. There was a new way to do business at a time when one was badly needed. Arum is back in a place he knows and a time he recognizes.
