By Mel "Sabaka" Ohlhoft

Top Rank's CEO Bob Arum is hoping boxing fans will look past the two recent pay-per-view event, both ending in lackluster fashion. The two shows, staged by Arum's business rival, Golden Boy Promotions, had boxing fans screaming for refunds.

In September, welterweight Victor Ortiz was knocked out in the fourth round by Floyd Mayweather Jr. Ortiz, who dropped his guard to apologize for an earlier foul, was caught cold with his hands down when Mayweather unleashed two punches. Last Saturday in Los Angeles, Chad Dawson stopped Bernard Hopkins in the second round. The fight concluded early when a push by Dawson put Hopkins down on his back and caused the veteran to suffer a left shoulder injury.  

The two remaining HBO pay-per-view events of 2011 are both being staged by Arum's company. Manny Pacquiao faces Juan Manuel Marquez in a trilogy bout on November 12th, and the long awaited junior middleweight rematch between Miguel Cotto and Antonio Margarito takes place in December.

"Hopefully we can differentiate ourselves from those pay-per-views. But would we have wanted two barn-burning pay-per-views to proceed us? The answer is yes. [Hopkins-Dawson] never should have been on pay-per-view. I don't blame the promoter on this. HBO had agreed to a very substantial license fee when they were doing all these crazy, stupid deals. And low and behold they woke up one day and said we don't have any more money. So what they did was flip it," Arum said to the New York Daily News.

"They kept the license fee the same with the promoter and they hoped that the pay-per-view would ameliorate their expenses. That to me is f**ked up. But that's what they did. I don't blame a greedy promoter. I blame a dysfunctional network. They were not good fights, no argument. It's the same as when people pay good money to go to a basketball game or a football game and it's a blowout."