Bob Arum
Top Rank’s founder and CEO, Bob Arum told the Times yesterday that Macau played a very important role in launching boxing in China. “Now boxing is strong and can survive without casino support but of course we would like to come back and do events in Macau that we consider the birth-place for boxing in China,” he said, speaking from Shanghai, where Chinese champion Zou Shiming fought on Saturday.
Bob Arum has no doubts that the eventual return of boxing to Macau is related to the interest of the gaming operators
”To do an event in Macau you need the support of the Venetian or Studio City, with its new arena, but above all people need to look at this and say that doing a boxing event makes sense for our property, and once they say that we would be happy to do it,” he concluded. Arum acknowledged that in this field Macau and Las Vegas are still very apart since in the U.S. all of the operators cooperate in promoting a boxing event independently of who is hosting it.
Still, “it would be wrong not to give a lot of credit to the Venetian and to what they accomplished,” Arum noted. “None of these [boxing bouts in Shanghai and Hong Kong] would have been possible without the Venetian. They gave us the opportunity to do events in China and to benefit from televised exposure and to build a fan base for boxing.”
The Las Vegas-based promoter said he is very pleased with the outcome of the event held at the Shanghai Oriental Sports Centre where Zou Shiming recaptured the WBO International Flyweight Championship title.
“It was tremendous,” said the promoter. “We had a very exciting crowd of more than 12,000 people and Zou Shiming was outstanding, putting on a really terrific performance.”
Arum revealed himself impressed by the fact that what was only the second event held in Shanghai had generated a great deal of enthusiasm from the public. “The crowd was very into it and very loud. [It] was beautiful,” the legendary promoter added.
As for the coming Hong Kong boxing event, Mr Arum said that he is “very optimistic” about selling out the 3,500-seat Convention Center venue.
He recalls that Rex Tso is “as popular in Hong Kong as Zou Shiming is in mainland China, so we expect the arena to be packed.”
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