FROM ALI TO PACQUIAO, MURAD MUHAMMAD IN HIS OWN WORDS PT. 10: MANNY PACQUIAO, A STAR IS BORN

By Percy Crawford | February 15, 2010

"People don't understand that Pacquiao was a fighter that was in America and they went to King, they went to Goosen, they went to Arum and Duva. They went to everybody and they turned him down. The reason he was turned down is because he was knocked out in his last fight as a world champion...Lou Dibella went crazy. He told the whole world that this was a fix, that I was in with Marian and this kid got knocked out and that the bookies should take the odds off the board. He said this was not a good fight and he didn't want nothing to do with it. I get a call from Kerry Davis with HBO. He said, 'Everybody in the house trusts you. What do we have?' I said, 'You got the next world champion.' He said, 'Thank you!'...we knocked out the champion and now a champ is born," stated promoter Murad Muhammad as he talked about the early years with Manny Pacquiao. Don't miss this behind-the-scenes look into the history of the sport as Murad himself tells his story in his own words. From Muhammad Ali to Manny Pacquiao, he has worked alongside some of the biggest names in boxing and you don't want to miss more of his extremely revealing tales. Check it out...

People don't understand that Pacquiao was a fighter that was in America and they went to King, they went to Goosen, they went to Arum and Duva. They went to everybody and they turned him down. The reason he was turned down is because he was knocked out in his last fight as a world champion. So my executive at the time said, "Murad, go to LA. You know how you always look at fighters that no one else will look at. Go to LA." I said, "No, I gotta be at the IBS Convention." He said, "They can miss you for one day." I said, "Yeah you're right." I walk in there to see Pacquiao and his manager and they wasn't there, so I waited 5 hours, but I had the opportunity to watch his tapes and I saw his opponents dropping like flies, but I couldn't see the punch. I kept saying, "Put this on slow motion." Come to find out he had an inside body punch that was knocking people out, so I watched him and he reminded me of a martial artist. That's why I called him, "Bruce Lee." I said, "I like this guy." So anyway, when the manager finally came, Rosario, he says, "Yes Muhammad." He was opening up his mail as he was talking to me and he seemed like he was disgusted. He said, "I've been in America for 2 years and couldn't find anybody. Now you tell me you're going to do this and do that?" I said, "Look sir, the only thing I can tell you is I pull miracles." That got his attention, so he signed to fight for $10,000.

What people didn't know prior to that is that I was at this WBC Convention in Venezuela and Spain. While I was in Spain, I had a Latino that I had took out of the pot and pan business and brought him into my company to be my interpreter. He was a good interpreter. What I liked about him is he would say exactly what I said. It was effective. I said, "Who is that guy right there?" He said, "That's the guy that has the junior middleweight championship of the world." I said, "The junior middleweight champ of the world? Who is that?" He said, "Javier Castillejo." I said, "I don't even know him." He said, "He's undefeated in 5 title defenses." I said, "Let's talk to him." He said, "Nah, you don't want to talk to him Murad. He's a very nasty guy." I said, "Let's talk to him." So sure enough, he was smoking cigarette after cigarette and he was a nasty kind of guy and was arrogant. So he insulted me. He said, "I just bought my contract back from Bob Arum; he couldn't do nothing with us. What could you do?" I said, "I pull miracles!" He said, "You pull miracles?" I said, "Yes. How much do you get out of your fighter?" He said, "33.3." I said, "I'm going to make you a millionaire." He said, "You going to make me a millionaire?" I told him, "If I'm going to make you a millionaire and you only getting 33.3, how much money do you think your fighter going to make?" That got his attention and he signed the contract. In that contract, I said that I was going to make them a millionaire.

I flew to LA and met with Jerry Perenchio [former chairman and CEO of Univision who, for a brief period of fights, promoted De La Hoya after leaving Bob Arum]. I said, "I hear you got Oscar De La Hoya." He said, "Yes, I do." I said, "Well you can't come back unless you fight for a world champion." He says, "Murad, who do you have?" I told him, "Javier Castillejo!" He said, "Yes, we can do business." I said, "Co-promotion!" He said, "Alright, this is what I will do. I will give you a clean deal." That was the first time I had heard that. A clean deal means you pay for your fighter, you pay for your publicity, you fly them in, you buy the hotel and everything on your part and it don't cost us anything. I told him he got it. He asked my price. I gave him my price, he shook my hand and said done deal. I made them both millionaires. I pulled millions of dollars in and in one months time, he's going to fight Oscar in his comeback. Me and Perenchio were co-promoters of the fight and I had to pay all of my side in my deal. If you want to know how much, was it one million? Much more! Two million? Much more! Three? Much more, but that's the farthest I will go. However, I had Javier Castillejo in Vegas, got him a camp in Vegas and we trained him every day and prepared him for this fight.

I was going to put my kid Manny Pacquiao on the undercard, but the fighter from Africa who was knocking out everybody [Lehlohonolo Ledwaba], and this was going to be his 4th or 5th title defense on HBO, his opponent fell out, so I told my office to go do their homework. We called the #1, 2, 3 and 4, all the way down to #6 [contender], and they were not available. We were the #7, so I called Marian Muhammad and I said, "Marian, tell the world if they want to defend that title, they gotta fight the leading available contender." She said, "Who is that?" I said, "Manny Pacquiao." She said, "You got him?" I said, "Yes." She says, "Murad, he's #7." I told her to go do her homework because I did; no one was available. So 2 hours later, she calls me back and says, "You got it." I said, "Send them a mandate." Lou Dibella went crazy. He told the whole world that this was a fix, that I was in with Marian and this kid got knocked out and that the bookies should take the odds off the board. He said this was not a good fight and he didn't want nothing to do with it. I get a call from Kerry Davis with HBO. He said, "Everybody in the house trusts you. What do we have?" I said, "You got the next world champion." He said, "Thank you!"

So I'm sitting next to my champ named "Smoke" Gainer, and that's another long story, but Smoke is my champion. Gainer used to always say, "If you ran 5 miles and then you call Murad Muhammad, you will run another 5." Smoke Gainer said, "Murad, let me tell you what's going to happen. He's [Ledwaba] going to play with him [Pacquiao] for 2 rounds and make you think you're in the fight. Then he's going to whoop your butt for another 2 rounds and then he's going to beat you up in the 5th and knock him out in the 6th." I said, "Let me tell you what we're going to do. We're going to show him how powerful we are in the 1st, he's going to knock him down in the 2nd, but you ain't going to see the punch." He laughed. The 1st round, we broke the African's nose. The 2nd round, he knocked him down, but the referee called it off because he didn't see it, but the African wouldn't get up, so he started counting and I turned to Gainer and said, "You haven't seen anything yet!" In the 6th round, we knocked out the champion and now a champ is born.

BE SURE TO CHECK BACK FOR PART 11 AS MUHAMMAD REVEALS MUCH MORE ABOUT MANNY PACQUIAO AND HIS YEARS AS A PROMOTER

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