Bob Arum’s ‘No Trump’ undercard Saturday has deep meaning to participants

Veteran boxing promoter Bob Arum has a tendency to get carried away in some of his statements. So he was asked if he did so Thursday when he referred to the Armenian genocide during his news conference to promote his “No Trump” undercard Saturday night.

Arum spoke of the killings when mentioning Arthur Abraham, the German of Armenian descent who will defend his World Boxing Organization super-middleweight title before Manny Pacquiao fights Timothy Bradley Jr. in the welterweight main event at MGM Grand.

Originally, Arum’s point in naming the undercard “No Trump” was rooted in the presence of four Mexican fighters, including Southland-trained Olympian Oscar Valdez of Mexico, Gilberto Ramirez of Mexico and California’s unbeaten 2012 U.S. Olympian Jose Ramirez, who is from Avenal, Calif.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly discussed the idea of building a wall to separate the U.S. from Mexico, contending that many immigrants commit crimes when they reach the U.S.

Arum’s point with Abraham is that his ancestors were touched by such talk of hate in government 100 years ago.

“You’re damn right I said that with some thought process,” Arum told The Times later Thursday. “The kid [Abraham] was in tears. … He knows that when you start talking hate and start talking about deporting people … you might think that’s the end of it, but it’s probably not.”

Arum, a former Justice Department attorney under Robert F. Kennedy, is Jewish and said he views the anti-immigration words from Trump as flammable, thinking, “It’s what happened to my people.”

He said he hasn’t heard from anyone angry with his “No Trump” campaign.

The promoter’s hope, he said, is that sports fans will be drawn to the card to see examples of the strong work ethic of the fighters, including Denver’s Manny Perez, who only arrived in Las Vegas Wednesday night because he was ordered to continue working at his full-time job loading and unloading trucks.

Mazatlan’s Gilberto Ramirez trains in Carson and is seeking to become the first Mexican to win a super-middleweight world title.

Ramirez picked bell peppers as a teenager in Central California.

The first-generation American opted to bypass studying at Fresno State to pursue the Olympics, and his pro fights in Fresno have been steady sellouts that help locals battle the drought crisis that has affected the area for nearly a decade. Ramirez is a vocal advocate in drought causes.

“It’s for us in the sport of boxing to speak out at this time when we have a presidential candidate who’s spewing the hate Mr. Trump is,” Arum said in the news conference. “Boxing is a sport. Fun and games. It’s on the sports page. But we in boxing have an obligation to be heard, and to not allow our country to sink into fascism and demagoguery, which we’ve been witnessing for the past few months.”

As for Valdez (18-0, 16 knockouts), the unbeaten featherweight was raised in Tucson, Ariz., and Nogales, Mexico. There is an actual wall that separates those cities, and Valdez has driven across the checkpoint several times visiting his mother and grandmother in Tucson.

“I’m blessed to have grown up on both sides,’’ said Valdez, who now lives in Hermosillo, Mexico, when not residing in Lake Elsinore while training in Carson. “Having grown up in Mexico means so much to me. My culture, my family is everything. Having grown up in the United States means so much. It’s so important to know English. It’s meant so much to have gone to school in Tucson and still have friends and family there. It will always be my second home.

“I do know people -- cousins, friends, family -- who have been deported, especially in the state of Arizona. There was a time there when it got really crazy. You know, it was sad. Just sad. I know my friends. They’re not terrorists. They just come to work and make a better life.’’

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