There is no official record but it's hard to imagine that any promoter has ever put on more boxing cards than Top Rank chairman Bob Arum, who this year celebrated his 50th year in the boxing business.
The first event Arum promoted was on March 29, 1966 at the Maple Leafs Garden in Toronto, where Muhammad Ali won a 15-round decision against George Chuvalo to retain the heavyweight world title. It would be the first of 27 Ali fights that Arum would promote for the man who became a close friend, and the start of a run that has dominated boxing promotion since.
Arum's next card will be the 2,000th of his Hall of Fame promotional career, an astonishing number and a testament to his longevity and ability to survive -- and thrive -- in such a cutthroat business where he has made as many friends as enemies.
"Nobody is close," Arum said. "I am sure nobody is close (to 2,000) in the history of boxing."
Card No. 2,000 is headlined by junior lightweight world titleholder Vasyl Lomachenko (6-1, 4 KOs), the uber-talented two-time Olympic gold medalist from Ukraine, making his first defense against fellow former featherweight titleholder Nicholas "Axe Man" Walters (26-0-1, 21 KOs), of Jamaica. The fight is Saturday night (HBO, 10:35 ET/PT) at The Cosmopolitan in Las Vegas, where Arum, a New Yorker, has lived for decades.
Arum's staff and the media are making more of a big deal about the card being his 2,000th than he is. Arum said he would not have even known had it not been for the research by his longtime matchmaker Bruce Trampler, who keeps a running list of the shows the company puts on, where they put them on and all kinds of other statistics related to Top Rank.
"I was as surprised as anyone when Bruce calculated it was the 2,000th show. It's an event and you don't give it a number. Only UFC gives numbers to its shows," Arum said.
Trampler realized it was card No. 2,000 when he was digging up some numbers for Sports Business Journal writer Bill King to assist him with a recent piece he wrote on Arum.
When Trampler realized Saturday's card was going to be Arum's 2,000th, he told him. Arum was unmoved.
"The truth is there was no reaction from me," Arum said. "For me 1,999 is the same number as 2,000. I will only celebrate if this Lomachenko-Walters fight is as great of a fight as I think it will be. If it's not, what's there to celebrate?"
Arum is very high on Lomachenko and also a big fan of Walters, a crushing puncher, so he said he is pleased that his milestone card is at least a top-notch fight that fans have been anticipating.
"This is my 2,000th event and this fight is worthy of being my 2,000th event," Arum said. "Nicholas Walters is the hardest puncher in these divisions. They don't call him the 'Axe Man' for nothing and he always gives 100 percent. And Vasyl Lomachenko is an unbelievable technician who has done really the impossible, winning world titles in two divisions in a record-few seven professional fights. So I look for a fight of the year candidate on Saturday night."
Lomachenko said he was happy to be part of Arum's milestone show.
"I would like to congratulate Bob Arum on his 2,000th event and I am proud to be on his 2,000th fight card," Lomachenko said through a translator. "I wish him very good health and I hope he can make a 2,500th card so I can be on that also."
Arum has come a long way since the early days as Ali's promoter. He estimates that with roughly seven or eight bouts per card he has promoted between 15,000 and 16,000 fights.
"When I promoted my first fight, my accountants were still using Roman numerals," Arum joked. "It's been quite an adventure."
In the early days, Arum, a former U.S. attorney who worked for Robert Kennedy's justice department in the 1960s, knew little about boxing when he began working with Ali following an introduction by all-time football great Jim Brown.
"I didn't know boxing. I didn't even really know about divisions other than heavyweight. I only knew there were heavyweights," Arum said. "Then people started contacting me about promoting fighters in other divisions and believe me, it was a good four or five years after I started with Ali."
The first non-heavyweights of note Arum worked with were former middleweight champion Carlos Monzon and former multi-division champion Roberto Duran, with whom he remains close to this day.
The bulk of Arum's cards came from his long association with ESPN, for which he put on the long-running weekly series "Top Rank Boxing" from 1980 to 1995. Of his 2,000 cards, 767 were televised by ESPN.
Here are some more stats, courtesy of Trampler:
Arum has promoted fights in all but eight states in the United States (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Kansas, South Dakota, Vermont, Virginia and Wyoming).
593 world title fights, including 22 heavyweight title fights
506 cards in Nevada, 410 in New Jersey and even 14 in China
215 different American cities and 91 foreign cities in 25 countries plus Puerto Rico
126 cards on HBO, 98 on CBS and 73 on ABC
41 Miguel Cotto fights, 38 Michael Carbajal, 37 Oscar De La Hoya, 37 Donald Curry, 36 Johnny Tapia, 35 Floyd Mayweather, 34 Julio Cesar Chavez Sr., 33 James Toney, 32 Erik Morales, 31 Micky Ward, 28 Iran Barkley, 27 Ali, 25 Freddie Roach, 25 Roger Mayweather, 20 Marvin Hagler, 20 Manny Pacquiao, 19 Juan Manuel Marquez, 14 George Foreman, 13 Thomas Hearns, 10 Alexis Arguello, 10 Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini, 8 Duran, 7 Sugar Ray Leonard, 7 Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., 7 Vito Antuofermo, 5 Carlos Monzon, 5 Emile Griffith, 4 Mike Tyson, 2 Larry Holmes and 1 Snake River Canyon jump by Evel Knievel.
Arum's favorite fighter that he promoted? Ali.
"He was a world figure. People loved him wherever he went, but he was also a great fighter," Arum said.
He ranked Pacquiao as No. 2.
"His life story is amazing," Arum said. "He [Pacquiao] came from virtually nothing to captivate an entire country."
He rounded out his top five with Hagler, Foreman and Mayweather.
"[Hagler] was the most loyal, stand-up guy I ever worked with. A tremendous fighter with great resolve," Arum said. "[Foreman] changed his persona and had such a big impact on our culture. He became the most loveable guy. [Mayweather] had extraordinary ability and he backed it up in the ring."
Of the 2,000 cards, Arum has put on many of the biggest fights in boxing history. He ranked his top five as Leonard-Hagler, Hagler-Hearns, De La Hoya-Felix Trinidad, Ali-Joe Frazier II and Mayweather-Pacquiao.
Arum, who turns 85 on Dec. 8, has no intention of slowing down. Top Rank has a UniMas-televised card featuring junior welterweight prospect Jose Ramirez on Dec. 2 in Fresno, California. Then Arum is off to Auckland, New Zealand, for the first time (country No. 26!) to co-promote the vacant heavyweight world title fight (No. 23) between Andy Ruiz, a Top Rank fighter, and Joseph Parker on Dec. 10, the same day that his staff will be in Omaha, Nebraska, promoting junior welterweight champion Terence Crawford's defense against John Molina.
Arum gave credit for his longevity to good genes and his ability to change with the times.
"It says I was blessed by having inherited good genes from my parents," Arum said. "Without that you can't do this at my age and, secondly, I always knew I had to keep up with the technological advancements. You had to get younger people who really are able to deal with it better than an older person and I did that."