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Why Bob Arum is using the Pacquiao fight to attack Donald Trump

LAS VEGAS – The rubber match with Timothy Bradley on Saturday at the MGM Grand Garden may well be the finale of Manny Pacquiao’s illustrious career, though it has hardly been a significant topic of conversation here.

Promoter Bob Arum has made his antipathy for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump as much of an issue during the show’s buildup as Pacquiao’s potential swan song.

Arum has dubbed his pay-per-view undercard bouts “The No Trump Undercard,” a gimmick designed primarily to appeal to Hispanic boxing fans.

Now past the half-century mark as a promoter, there is a method to Arum’s madness. He’s had a few problems marketing the fight, so he’s tried to mask them.

He’s been around long enough to know that it’s wise to disregard a boxer when he first begins to speak of retirement.

They just about all come back sooner or later. Pacquiao will be no different, even if he stands at the dais with tears in his eyes late Saturday after the fight with Bradley and says his goodbyes.

Sooner or later, Pacquiao will likely be back, and Arum has long since tired of people calling him a liar. If he promoted the bout as Pacquiao’s finale, he’d be called on it the minute Pacquiao announced his return.

Then, there is the very much overlooked matter of Pacquiao’s offensive comments about homosexuals that he made in February while still in the Philippines.

Pacquiao has tried to downplay it and, of course, blame the media for his woes because, well, when all else fails, blame the media. He said the comments he made were part of a longer interview that were taken out of context.

But those comments were seen in their entirety by the many celebrities and public figures in the Philippines who rightly condemned Pacquiao for his bigoted words.

“Of course, it’s going to hurt the pay-per-view,” Arum said. “There are going to be people who won’t buy the pay-per-view because they feel Manny’s comments were offensive. I feel they’re offensive.”

And then there is the matter of the first two fights. Bradley won a split decision in 2012 that was so questionable Arum called for the Nevada attorney general to launch an investigation. Pacquiao then won the 2014 rematch going away.

That means that going into Saturday’s supposed rubber match, most neutral observers believe Pacquiao has won 18 or so of the 24 contested rounds. So Arum faces a difficult task selling the fight from a competition standpoint.

There was a feeble effort made to try to spin it that Teddy Atlas, Bradley’s new trainer, has made such a difference in Bradley’s game that it’s now anybody’s fight.

That may be – Atlas is an outstanding trainer – but there is little evidence to back up the claim. Bradley and Atlas have had one fight together, and Bradley stopped an unmotivated and out-of-shape Brandon Rios in nine rounds.

What can reasonably be gauged from that? Very little.

“The first fight you have with a fighter, it’s usually pretty tough,” said Freddie Roach, Pacquiao’s trainer and a member of the International Boxing Hall of Fame. “You’re still learning each other. The second fight, it’s maybe a little better, but you still have a ways to go. It really takes three, four fights before you feel comfortable together and the trainer can make a difference.”

Thus, Arum is left to promote the show by knocking Trump, hoping against hope that Trump might hear about it and respond. As Arum took the dais Thursday to begin the undercard news conference at the MGM Grand, he said, “Welcome to ‘The No Trump Undercard’ press conference.”

Instantly, the fighters on the dais all beamed and those in the audience chuckled.

Arum was on a roll as he introduced each fighter, somehow finding a way to bash Trump as he did so. When he began his introduction of WBO super middleweight champion Arthur Abraham, Arum spoke of the 100-year-old genocide in Armenia, Abraham’s birthplace.

It was a stretch, but it allowed Arum to hide the weaknesses inherent in his fight card and generate headlines for a show that desperately needs them.

He was asked later if he’d heard from Trump or anyone connected with him.

“No,” Arum sneered, “not a [expletive] word. Listen, this guy can bully Marco Rubio, and he can bully Jeb Bush, but he’s not going to bully Bob Arum.”

Arum is an unabashed Hillary Clinton supporter and said he’s glad that Abraham is on the card because it made him think of German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

“I’m very, very happy we have on this card Arthur Abraham from Germany,” Arum said as he was cutting short Pacquiao’s session with reporters the other day. “The chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, is an example to the world of what a great job a woman can do.”

Now, this is the same guy who in 2008 was supporting then-New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson over Clinton and then-Sen. Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination. At a CNN debate in Las Vegas at the time, the first several questions went back and forth between Clinton, Obama and Sen. John Edwards.

To this point, Richardson and the other candidates on stage had been ignored. When yet another question was posed for Clinton, an unmistakable baritone boomed out of the silence in the audience.

“They’re not the only candidates on the stage,” the voice said.

It was Arum, of course, hoping the moderators would get Richardson involved.

Arum is a genius who is as fearless and resourceful as he is smart. He manages to find a way to create a buzz where none reasonably should exist.

Last year, when Pacquiao was fighting Floyd Mayweather, there was story after story about Mayweather’s history with domestic violence.

This time around, there has been very little made of Pacquiao’s terrible comments about homosexuals.

While Arum’s views on the topic are the opposite of Pacquiao’s – Arum supports gay marriage and full rights for the LGBT community – he knew a prolonged campaign in the media about Pacquiao’s bigoted views would likely doom the fight from a financial standpoint.

So he managed to flip the script and turn the attention on Trump.

It may not work, but at least he gave the pay-per-view a fighting chance.