Bob Arum: Age, height, weight, marriage, personal life, controversies, career

Bob Arum is a boxing promoter and lawyer from the United States. He is the founder and CEO of Top Rank, a Las Vegas-based professional boxing promotion firm. During his legal career, he also worked for the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York in the tax division before switching into boxing promotion.

Early life

Arum was raised in New York’s Crown Heights neighbourhood with an Orthodox Jewish family and is of Jewish origin. He went to Erasmus Hall High School, New York University, and Harvard Law School, where he earned a degree with honours.

Until 1965, he worked as an attorney in the United States Department of Justice and had little interest in boxing. He used his schooling and financial acumen to become a boxing promoter, most notably for Muhammad Ali, and became a driving force behind the sport in the 1980s, rivalling Don King.

Career

During the 1980s, Arum rivalled Don King as a driving force behind the sport. Arum arranged superfights between Marvin Hagler and Roberto Durán, as well as Hagler and Thomas Hearns. In April 1986, Arum staged the Hagler–John Mugabi, Hearns–James Shuler doubleheader in Las Vegas.

Shuler, who had lost to Hearns by knockout in the first round, went up at Arum’s hotel room after the fight to thank him for the opportunity to fight Hearns.

Arum continued to produce large-scale undercards and superfights, such as the Hagler–Sugar Ray Leonard fight, the Sugar Ray Leonard vs. Thomas Hearns rematch in 1989, Evander Holyfield vs. George Foreman fight, and many others.

Former world flyweight champion Michael Carbajal, six-division world champion Oscar De La Hoya, eight-division world champion Manny Pacquiao, and three-division world champion Erik Morales are among Arum’s 1990s superstars. In his later years of boxing, Arum also promoted the renowned champion, Julio César Chávez.

In recent years, Arum has focused mostly on promoting Hispanic athletes, claiming surveys that show boxing is one of the most popular sports among the Hispanic community. He has concentrated many of his presentations in cities with big Spanish-speaking populations in the United States Southwest. He also promotes a number of cards on Telefutura, a Spanish-language network.

He has had a lot of success with Puerto Rican Miguel Cotto, who won world titles at 140, 147, 154, and 160 pounds; Mexican-American Antonio Margarito, who held a 147-pound WBO belt from 2002 to 2007; and others, former WBC and WBO light-welterweight world champion José Ramrez of Mexico; Honduran-American Teófimo López of Honduras, the current unified lightweight world champion; and Mexican star Valdez, the current WBC super featherweight world champion.

In 1999, Arum was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame. In 2003, he was inducted into the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame of Southern California.

Personal life

Arum has had two marriages. With his first wife, he had three children: Richard, Elizabeth, and John. John Arum (1961–2010), an environmental lawyer, died in 2010 while climbing the north face of Storm King, a mountain in North Cascades National Park. He is most known for his thorough defence of Native American tribal rights.

He married Lovee duBoef in 1991, and they have two stepchildren: Todd duBoef, President of Top Rank, and Dena duBoef, Vice President of Top Rank. Sheldon Adelson, the wealthy casino tycoon and CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corp, is a close friend and business associate of Arum.

In the run-up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Arum endorsed Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

Controversies

Arum worked with John Daly on the High Noon boxing event in Hong Kong in 1994. When no purses were arriving from Top Rank, Barry Hearn scuttled the contests at the last minute by withdrawing his fighters.

Arum voluntarily testified in 2000, citing extortion, to having paid IBF president Robert W. “Bobby” Lee, Sr. $100,000 in two installments in 1995, as the first half of a $200,000 bribe, through “middleman, Stanley Hoffman,” adding that Lee had initially demanded $500,000 to approve the Schulz–Foreman fight but had settled for the lesser amount of $200,000 (half of which was never paid).

Lee was charged with racketeering in 1999 but was found guilty of money laundering and tax evasion in 2000. The Nevada State Athletic Commission sanctioned and penalised Arum $125,000 as a result of his testimony. Cedric Kushner and Dino Duva, both boxing promoters, acknowledged making similar payments to Lee.

In January 2001, Oscar De La Hoya successfully sued Arum and was legally released from his contract with Top Rank. Following years of squabbles, he and De La Hoya officially reconciled.

According to Yahoo Sports, “Floyd Mayweather Jr. essentially accused Arum, who promoted him from the start of his career in 1996 until 2006, of underpaying him, misusing his talents, and manipulating officials” in 2007. In 2015, Mayweather, who later became a boxing promoter, told Yahoo Sports, “I don’t have anything bad to say about Bob Arum.”

In 2020, Arum claimed that one of his top boxers, Terence Crawford, should begin promoting himself more effectively. He contrasted his predicament to that of several other sports legends. With the money he lost on Crawford’s past three fights, Arum claimed he could have built a house in Beverly Hills. Crawford did not take this lightly, expressing his displeasure with Arum’s remarks through a variety of media venues.

Read More: Barry Hearn: Early life, age, height, wife, management career and personal life