SALUD SAYS ARUM LOOKING FOR MEXICAN TO BEAT PACQUIAO

By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Fri, 30 Mar 2007

WBC founding secretary general, lawyer Rudy Salud, said yesterday he is convinced Top Rank promoter Bob Arum is "looking for a Mexican to beat (Manny) Pacquiao" and pointed to Arum’s protégé Humberto Soto as the possible choice.

Salud noted that Arum’s request to the WBC to have Soto declared mandatory challenger to newly crowned super featherweight champion Juan Manuel Marquez indicated his intentions. Salud said Pacquiao, for all Arum’s statements, was not really his fighter and that since Arum depends largely on Mexican fighters and the fans they draw, he would look for a Mexican to end Pacquiao’s domination of the 130 pound division.

Arum said in the past when Erik "El Terrible" Morales was to begin his epic trilogy with Pacquiao that he would always support the Mexicans and nobody else until Pacquiao demolished Morales and Arum was left with no attractive fighter to draw the crowds and help him make money. Salud said he believes Arum wants "to stop Golden Boy from getting the Mexican fighters" even as Oscar De La Hoya only recently signed up another top ranked super featherweight contender Rocky Juarez, another Mexican.

Salud also indicated that Arum was probably a little wary of Pacquiao and his tendency to move from one camp to another having first signed a seven-fight deal with Golden Boy Promotions in mid-September and then two months later signed a four-fight deal with Arum, in the process receiving a $1 million bonus which was twice as much as De La Hoya gave Pacquiao. Salud said that because of this uncertainty, Arum was probably protecting himself.

Pacquiao’s close friend and confidant Rex "Wakee" Salud, no relative of the former WBC official, agreed with Salud's observations and indicated he too was concerned about Arum’s pushing for a Marquez-Soto mandatory title fight when Pacquiao himself was the mandatory challenger and had agreed to maintain that status in response to an inquiry from WBC president Jose Sulaiman.