Leonard Ellerbe: Bob Arum playing the race card is ‘sad and embarrassing’

Badlefthook.com

The Terence Crawford-Errol Spence Jr dilemma is probably the biggest story in boxing right now, even bigger than Jarrell Miller’s drug test disasters or Amir Khan and his thigh-groin.

One thing a lot of people have missed is this comment from Bob Arum, spoken to a group of reporters after the Crawford-Khan fight on Saturday. Our own Michael Woods was on the scene and got the quote for us:

“No, because you can hear what he’s gonna say,” Arum told a group of reporters, referring to Al Haymon. “He’s gonna say, ‘Spence, listen to me. Don’t listen to the white guys, because if you listen to the white guys they’re gonna steer you down the road. Listen to me, brother. We’re part of a brotherhood. And if I tell you not to fight Crawford, I’m telling you not to fight Crawford.’ That’s exactly what he will say.”

It’s prime-level Bob Arum-type stuff, along the same lines as 10 years ago when he stood in Yankee Stadium and called UFC “a bunch of skinhead white guys watching people in the ring who also look like skinhead white guys,” as well as “guys rolling around like homosexuals on the ground.”

It’s controversial for the sake of being controversial, and probably does nothing to help Arum do what he claims to want, which is work with Al Haymon for a big fight like Crawford-Spence.

Leonard Ellerbe has worked with Haymon and as a result has been one of Arum’s main adversaries for many years now, and he responded to the latest rant in an interview with Fight Hype:

“It’s insulting that he would insinuate and make an ignorant comment like that. Would he say that to the Latino fighters, to the Asian fighters, or to the Caucasian fighters that Al works with? It’s asinine and it’s not a good look. What is he thinking? I’m shocked that he would even say something like that. We all know what this whole charade is about. In my opinion, Bob has made certain commitments that he’s unable to deliver on and it’s really frustrating to him. As a result, these are the comments that’s he’s making. It’s really sad and embarrassing for him and his company.”

Ellerbe also called Arum “an excellent promoter” and said he feels Arum is “really frustrated” by not being able to deliver for ESPN what was promised, which is something he also discussed last week in response to Arum.

But everybody’s going to most likely go on doing what they do — Arum’s going to rant and rave, Ellerbe will shoot back, Al Haymon will exist to us only as a concept, and Top Rank guys won’t fight PBC guys.