Bob Arum Fires Back At Keith Thurman: ‘What The Hell Is He Talking About?’

Top Rank Boxing’s Bob Arum didn’t hold his tongue in response to Keith Thurman.

Thurman turned some heads with his recent rant on Arum. During a live chat on social media, Thurman called Arum “one of the worst promoters in the game.” Thurman claimed all of Arum’s fighters are leaving Top Rank because he’s too cheap to pay them.

During an interview with iFL TV, Arum fired back at Thurman (h/t Bad Left Hook).

“Yeah I saw that. What the hell is he talking about, that I’m being cheap?! You know, I’ve been in this boxing business for many years, and there were fighters who always said that promoters — myself, particularly (Don) King — that it was not fair that if there were a pie, we were getting this percentage. They said we should get a smaller percentage. That was one thing. That was the normal argument, are we as a promoter taking too big a share of the pie.

“That’s legitimate, that makes sense. But it doesn’t make sense to say to a promoter ‘look, we know it’s pandemic, we know there’s a limited amount of money, but go into your own pocket and pay me what I wanna get paid!’ I mean for Christ’s sake, there has to be some kind of business element! I mean, I would tell Thurman ‘hey, have somebody else promote the fight, let them lose money, and I promise I’ll buy a ringside ticket to see the fight.’”

Thurman’s rant stems from the holdup in booking WBC and IBF Welterweight Champion Errol Spence Jr. against WBO titleholder Terence Crawford. Both men are undefeated and most agree it’s the fight to make at welterweight. The problem is, Spence fights for PBC while Crawford is under Top Rank. Spence has also said he wants a higher purse split.