Fight Game Ripe for Big Changes

Published

10 years ago

July 8, 2014

Let’s call it for now the Steve Ballmer effect on pro sports, but there are reasons to believe that the fight game is a hot iron for the right hammer in the aftermath of Ballmer’s $2 billion bid to purchase the NBA’s LA Clippers. With the offer, chump change for a guy with a net worth 10 times greater than the bid, the ranks of businesspeople in sports ownership has become ever more exclusive and may lead to some serious speculation and investment in a sport that is currently as organized as the Iraqi armed forces.

Becoming literate in the business side of the fight game can be about as much fun as dissecting a worm, but in a world that like a worm has no head, it offers constant spectacle and drama. The sordid back rooms of boxing’s past which enforced Jim Crow, allowed Mafiosi to fix fights, controlled who fought whom, allowed convicted murderers to promote fights, wrapped fighters hands in plaster and injected them with performance-enhancing drugs have imbued the sweet science a kind of seedy allure that has not been translated well into the HD age of sports.

The time might be finally right for a deep-pocketed investor with savvy and vision to come along and lead the ship into the mainstream.

Just consider some tidbits from boxing’s very recent past:

— Richard Schaefer jumped ship on Golden Boy to dive down into Al Haymon’s mysterious submarine armed to the teeth with undermatched but marketable fighters and with torpedoes set to fire volleys of lawyers back to the surface at a moment’s notice.

— Officials from alphabet sanctioning bodies WBC, WBA and IBF “had a very productive meeting” in Cancun in which they took a first step towards working together. Also, it was reported that they ate some food in the hotel and some of them took lonely short walks on the beach.

— Carl Froch unraveled George Groves in their London rematch in front of 80,000 fans in a soccer, er, football stadium, prompting casual observers to conclude much to the bored chagrin of boxing fans everywhere that the sport was, after all, not dead.

— Eddie Hearn, the 34-year old Brit who promoted the Froch-Groves show, counted his money and looked across the pond, surmising: “Without being disrespectful, a lot of the promoters are quite old and it’s a great opportunity for a young promoter and a young company to come in. There is a big opportunity for us out here [in the USA]. Over the next couple of months we’re going to try and put that in place, talk to broadcasters and get our head around the market, looking at potential fighters as well.”

— The sports’ two biggest draws traditionally, Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao, posted PPV numbers about 20% lower than expected for their most recent, highly entertaining fights. Chalk that one up to: 1) the antiquated and expensive PPV distribution problem/existence of Russian internet bootleggers 2) public resentment that the two aren’t fighting each other, and 3) the fact that they’re both past their prime.

— Not a newsy tidbit, but food for thought: Bob Arum, the biggest promoter in boxing , is reputed to have a net worth of $200 million. For those counting at home, that’s one tenth of what the Clippers will be sold for and one hundredth of Ballmer’s net worth.

— Similarly, Floyd Mayweather continues to be the world’s highest earning athlete.

The last two are meant as point-counterpoint arguments. Arum’s wealth, while formidable, is nothing compared to the coffers of others (including Mayweather). If you had a billion dollars kicking around you could make some serious waves. And having a billion dollars kicking around isn’t exactly rare these days, to get onto Forbes magazine’s list of the 400 richest Americans in 1995, you needed $418m. By 2011, it took $1 billion.

ESPN’s Boxcino tournament played out on the network’s Friday Night Fights with mostly unknown fighter competing for a reputed grand prize of around $50,000. Tournaments are an ideal format for recruiting new fans. The fights are all pre-contracted so that winners have to face other winners and the global venues can change to increase visibility.

It would take some maneuvering to navigate the usual obstacles of contracts and networks but what, besides money, is to stop an investor from setting up such a tournament on a larger scale? Ruslan Provodnikov just pocketed $750,000 to Chris Algieri’s $100,000 for a fight in a premium arena televised by a premium network. The combined purse money for the whole card was roughly equal to a fourth line NHL right winger, or the salary of a replacement-level utility infielder.

If such an investor were smart enough to recruit the right boxers to perform in the right venues with the right promotion, the sport could erupt in visibility and popularity, and the financial risk weighed against the potential reward gets more favorable by the day as global wealth expands for the ultra-rich. For less than $20 million dollars, for example, you could pick eight top middleweights to fight in a tournament that paid the eventual victor $5 million (a career purse for every middleweight excluding the new champ Cotto). Who wouldn’t love to see how things could unfold in a months-long tournament throwing in names like Martin Murray, Gennady Golovkin, Peter Quillin, Felix Sturm, etc.

With the right organization and financial backing and given the premium commercial status that live sporting events are afforded these days, a major television network would eventually be chomping at the bit to give the thing a shot in the arm.

The mentality of boxing promotion still feels very much stuck in the corrupt political mire of the 20^th century, unable to pick itself back off the mat. Don’t expect it take the full eight seconds of rest before it leaps back into the attack.

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Aaron Lowinger

WBA Feather Champ Nick Ball Chops Down Rugged Ronny Rios in Liverpool

Published

1 day ago

October 5, 2024

Arne K. Lang

WBA-Feather-Champ-Nick-Ball-Chops-Down-Rugged-Ronny-Rios-in-Liverpool

In his first fight in his native Liverpool since February of 2020, Nick Ball successfully defended his WBA title with a 10^th-round stoppage of SoCal veteran Ronny Rios. The five-foot-two “Wrecking Ball” was making the first defense of a world featherweight strap he won in his second stab at it, taking the belt from Raymond Ford on a split decision after previously fighting Rey Vargas to a draw in a match that many thought Ball had won.

This fight looked like it was going to be over early. Ball strafed Rios with an assortment of punches in the first two rounds, and likely came within a punch or two of ending the match in the third when he put Rios on the canvas with a short left hook and then tore after him relentlessly. But Rios, a glutton for punishment, weathered the storm and actually had some good moments in round four and five.

The brother of welterweight contender Alexis Rocha and a two-time world title challenger at 122 pounds, Rios returned to the ring in April on a ProBox card in Florida and this was his second start after being out of the ring for 28 months. He would be on the canvas twice more before the bout was halted. The punch that knocked him off his pins in round seven wasn’t a clean shot, but he would be in dire straits three rounds later when he was hammered onto the ring apron with a barrage of punches. He managed to maneuver his way back into the ring, but his corner sensibly threw in the towel when it seemed as if referee Bob Williams would let the match continue.

The official time was 2:06 of round ten. Ball improved to 21-0-1 (12 KOs). Rios, 34, declined to 34-5.

Semi-wind-up

A bout contested for a multiplicity of regional 140-pound titles produced a mild upset when Jack Rafferty wore down and eventually stopped Henry Turner whose corner pulled him out after the ninth frame.

Both fighters were undefeated coming in. Turner, now 13-1, was the better boxer and had the best of the early rounds. However, he used up a lot of energy moving side-to-side as he fought off his back foot, and Rafferty, who improved to 24-0 (15 KOs), never wavered as he continued to press forward.

The tide turned dramatically in round eight. One could see Turner’s legs getting loggy and the confidence draining from his face. The ninth round was all Rafferty. Turner was a cooked goose when Rafferty collapsed him with four unanswered body punches, but he made it to the final bell before his corner wisely pulled him out. Through the completed rounds, two of the judges had it even and the third had the vanquished Turner up by 4 points.

Other Bouts of Note

In a lightweight affair, Jadier Herrera, a highly-touted 22-year-old Cuban who had been campaigning in Dubai, advanced to 16-0 (14 KOs) with a third-round stoppage of Oliver Flores (31-6-2) a Nicaraguan southpaw making his UK debut. After two even rounds, Herrera put Flores on the deck with a left to the solar plexus. Flores spit out his mouthpiece as he lay there in obvious distress and referee Steve Gray waived the fight off as he was attempting to rise. The end came 30 seconds into round three.

In a bantamweight contest slated for 10, Liverpool’s Andrew Cain (13-1, 12 KOs) dismissed Colombia’s Lazaro Casseres at the 1:48 mark of the second round.

A stablemate and sparring partner of Nick Ball, Cain knocked Casseres to the canvas in the second round with a short uppercut and forced the stoppage later in the round when he knocked the Colombian into the ropes with a double left hook. Casseres. 27, brought an 11-1 record but had defeated only two opponents with winning records.

In a contest between super welterweights, Walter Fury pitched a 4-round shutout over Dale Arrowsmith. This was the second pro fight for the 27-year-old Fury who had his famous cousin Tyson Fury rooting him on from ringside. Stylistically, Walter resembles Tyson, but his defense is hardly as tight; he was clipped a few times.

Arrowsmith is a weekend warrior and a professional loser, a species indigenous to the British Isles. This was his twenty-fourth fight this year and his 186^th pro fight overall! His record is “illuminated” by nine wins and 10 draws.

A Queensberry Promotion, the Ball vs Rios card aired in the UK on TNT Sports and in the US on ESPN+.

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Alimkhanuly TKOs Mikhailovich and Motu TKOs O’Connell in Sydney

Published

2 days ago

October 4, 2024

Arne K. Lang

Alimkhanuly-TKOs-Mikhailovich-and-Motu-TKOs-O'Connell-in-Sydney

IBF/WBO world middleweight champion Janibek Alimkhanuly, generally regarded as the best of the current crop of middleweights, retained his IBF title today in Sydney, Australia, with a ninth-round stoppage of game but overmatched Andrei Mikhailovich. The end came at the 2:45 mark of round nine.

Favored in the 8/1 range although he was in a hostile environment, Alimkhanuly (16-0, 11 KOs) beat Mikhailovich to a pulp in the second round and knocked him down with one second remaining in the frame, but Mikhailovich survived the onslaught and had several good moments in the ensuing rounds as he pressed the action. However, Alimkhanuly’s punches were cleaner and one could sense that it was only a matter of time before the referee would rescue Mikhailovich from further punishment. When a short left deposited Mikhailovich on the seat of his pants on the lower strand of rope, the ref had seen enough.

Alimkhanuly, a 2016 Olympian for Kazakhstan, was making his first start since October of last year. He and Mikhailovich were slated to fight in Las Vegas in July, but the bout fell apart after the weigh-in when the Kazakh fainted from dehydration.

Owing to a technicality, Alimkhanuly’s WBO belt wasn’t at stake today. Although he has expressed an interest in unifying the title –Eislandy Lara (WBA) and Carlos Adames (WBC) are the other middleweight belt-holders — Alimkhanuly is big for the weight class and it’s a fair assumption that this was his final fight at 160.

The brave Mikhailovich, who was born in Russia but grew up in New Zealand after he and his twin brother were adopted, suffered his first pro loss, declining to 21-1.

Semi-wind-up

Topping the flimsy undercard was a scheduled 8-rounder between Mikhailovich’s stablemate Mea Motu, a 34-year-old Maori, and veteran Australian campaigner Shannon O’Connell, 41. The ladies share eight children between them (Motu, trained by her mother in her amateur days, has five).

A clash of heads in the opening round left O’Connell with a bad gash on her forehead. She had a big lump developing over her right eye when her corner threw in the towel at the 1:06 mark of round four.

Motu (20-0, 8 KOs) was set to challenge IBF/WBO world featherweight champion Ellie Scotney later this month in Manchester, England, underneath Catterall-Prograis, but that match was postponed when Scotney suffered an injury in training. Motu took this fight, which was contested at the catchweight of 125 pounds, to stay busy. O’Connell, 29-8-1, previously had a cup of coffee as a WBA world champion (haven’t we all).

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Avila Perspective, Chap. 299: Golden Boy in Saudi Arabia and More

Published

3 days ago

October 3, 2024

David A. Avila

Avila Perspective, Chap. 299: Golden Boy in Saudi Arabia and More

A small brigade of Mexican and Latino-American fighters gathered at the beautiful Mayan Theater in downtown Los Angeles on Wednesday.

Their mission: to export Mexican style fighting to the Saudi Arabia desert.

Gilberto “Zurdo” Ramirez defends the WBA cruiserweight title against WBO cruiserweight titlist Chris Billam-Smith and they will be joined by several other top Golden Boy Promotion fighters on Nov. 16 at the Venue in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

DAZN will stream the Golden Boy and BOXXER promotions card called “The Venue Riyadh Season.”

Mexican fighters are known worldwide for their ferocity and durability. Ramirez, a former super middleweight champion, surprised many with his convincing win over former champion Arsen Goulamirian last March.

Now Ramirez seeks to unify the cruiserweight titles against United Kingdom’s Smith who has never fought outside of his native country.

“I will become the first Mexican cruiserweight unified champion. It’s exciting because my dream will come true this November 16,” said Ramirez.

Smith has a similar goal.

“This opportunity for me is huge,” said Smith. “I’ve been written off many times before.”

The cruiserweights will be joined by two top super lightweight warriors who’ve been itching to face each other like a pair of fighting roosters.

Arnold Barboza, an undefeated super lightweight contender from Los Angeles, has been chasing top contenders and world champions for the past six years. Former super lightweight champion Jose Ramirez simply wants action and a return to elite status.

“I’ve been wanting this fight since 2019 for whatever reason it never happened,” said Barboza. “I want to give credit and thanks to Oscar, he’s a man of his word. When I signed to Golden Boy, he said he was going to give me this fight.”

“It’s honorable Barboza saying he’s been chasing the fight since 2019. Now that he stands in the way for me to reclaim my titles it’s time to get that fight on,” said Ramirez.

Others on the Riyadh fight card include Puerto Rico’s WBO minimumweight world titlist Oscar Collazo defending against Thailand’s Thammanoon Niyomtrong, along with Oscar Duarte and lightweight contenders William Zepeda and Tevin Farmer.

One fighter missing from the card is Charles Conwell, the super welterweight contender they recently signed earlier in the year. He last performed on the Vergil Ortiz Jr. and Serhii Bohachuk clash in Las Vegas.

Conwell has similar talent to those two.

And what about the women fighters”

Yokasta Valle recently re-signed with Golden Boy Promotions. What is her next scheduled fight? She was spotted facing up against Australia’s Lulu “Bang, Bang” Hawton at a fight card. Is that on the horizon?

West Coast venues

Speaking of the Mayan Theater in downtown Los Angeles, its just a few buildings north of the Belasco Theater where Golden Boy was staging its club shows for several years.

A majority of the boxing media favored that location for its cozy atmosphere and proximity to LA Live. A number of prospects that developed into contenders and world champions fought there including Vergil Ortiz Jr., Ryan Garcia, Joshua Franco, and Oscar Duarte.

On any given fight night celebrities like Mario Lopez, George Lopez and others would show up in the small venue that held several hundred fans in its ornate theater setting.

The Mayan Theater and Belasco Theater are still open for business. According to one source, LA Laker owner Jeannie Buss stages a pro wrestling show at one of those theaters.

World title fight

England’s Nick Ball (20-0-1, 11 KOs) defends the WBA featherweight world title against Southern California’s Ronny Rios (34-4, 17 KOs) on Saturday Oct. 5, at M&S Bank Arena in Liverpool, England. Starting time for the Queensberry and Top Rank promotion card is 11 a.m. PT.

Ball was last seen nearly toppling WBC featherweight titlist Rey Vargas but lost last March. He then defeated Ray Ford for the WBA title

Fights to Watch

Fri. ESPN+ 2 a.m. PT Janibek Alimkhanuly (15-0) vs Andrei Mikhailovich (21-0)

Sat. ESPN+ 11 a.m. PT Nick Ball (20-0-1) vs Ronny Rios (34-4)

Photo credit: Cris Esqueda / Golden Boy

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