IBO Boxing Honesty and Integrity
By Scoop Malinowski
Al Haymon has sent out Keith Thurman to denounce Bob Arum and Terence Crawford, with an angry interview this week. It’s more media manipulation by Haymon with the intent to continue to ostracize and freeze out Crawford from beating his key welterweights Thurman, Errol Spence and Danny Garcia.
Predictably, Thurman angrily bashed Arum, while showing zero interest to try to beat Arum and his key asset Crawford in the ring…
“Fuck Bob Arum you piece of shit. Fuck Top Rank.”
“All of your great fighters left your ass. Thurman ain’t no punk.”
“You can’t afford us. You ain’t gonna pay no full price (during virus) but you ain’t getting a discount.”
“There ain’t gonna be no fight (with Crawford). You can’t afford it. I don’t need ten million dollars. But I do need respect. Terence Crawford wanted to fight me last year. Thurman vs Crawford is fire – they can’t afford it.”
It’s a clever duck move by Thurman in the disguise of an angry, raging tirade. Haymon sends out his pawn Thurman to excoriate Arum with fake, fabricated excuses, the same excuses Haymon manipulates his pawns like Thurman to use every single time.
Portray Arum as the villain, and use Arum as the escape hatch to protect Haymon’s assets from being destroyed by Arum and his superior. Arum is 13-1 vs Haymon fighters.
What Thurman really showed is he’s frightened of Arum and Crawford and he does not feel confident in his chances to beat Bud. The scared dog barks the loudest.
Haymon has been cheating the sport, the fans, and media with this same modus operandi for over a decade now. Blame Bob Arum, blame anything to protect his over-rated, in house, minor league assets. And the cost has been numerous superfights wasted – Wilder vs Joshua, Stevenson vs Kovalev, Davis vs Lomachenko, Floyd vs Pacquiao for six years, Spence vs Thurman.
We have arrived at the point in time when Haymon must be boycotted out of the sport for ruining the career of Terence Crawford.
