Bob Arum has seen it all, having been promoting for over 50 years and the Hall of Fame promoter insists that he’d been to many changing of the guard rites that he doesn’t discount the possibility of it taking place once again on July 2 in Brisbane.
“The history in boxing is that the veteran gets old overnight in the ring and the young guy comes on and is able to win the fight,” the Top Rank chief said in a story carried by The Sydney Morning Herald.
“I’m not saying it’s going to happen in this fight but that has been something that’s not surprising in boxing,” the 85-year-old Brooklyn-born lawyer said.
Sounding like the 15th century seer Nostradmus, Arum sees an eerie similarity to what has happened many times before in the fight game.
“The young lion waits until the old lion gets old and then challenges him for supremacy. That’s life and this fight has that theme,” added Arum.
Pacquiao is in Australa to drumbeat his defense of the World Boxing Organization welterweight crown against the undefeated Horn at the Suncorp Stadium, which will be reconfigured to fit 55,000 people.
The Australian media reports that 15,000 tickets have already been sold and a sellout is imminent since the Pacquiao-Horn slugfest has been fancied as the biggest boxing event ever to be staged Down Under.
Pacquiao’s first stop of the three-city press tour was Brisbane but he is now in Sydney alongside wife Jinkee to proceed with the promotional tour.
The last leg will be Melbourne and as soon as it is over, Pacquiao will head back to the Philippines to set the stage for his training camp.