Promoters are to boxing as weight loss and popup ads are to the internet. Everybody hates them, but unfortunately they play a big role in keeping the whole thing working.
Like internet ads, some promoters are worse than others and in this post I’m going to try and grade them based on their recent performance. I’m not going to give myself a specific time frame, but generally I’m going to be talking about the last two years.
I’m using two, sometimes contradictory, tests on the promoters:
1 – If I was a 19-year-old prospect, would I want to sign with promoter X, based on how they handle their fighters?
2- How good has promoter X been for the sport of boxing recently?
Then I’m going to try to combine the two and get some kind of overall mark. Hopefully this will help work out which promoters are mildly annoying hot girl personal ads and which are cancerous BoxingScene pop ups (and… end stretched metaphor).
I’m only going to include the big American promoters this time out, maybe the British and European promoters can wait for another day.
DON KING/DON KING PRODUCTIONS
Don King’s heyday is certainly over and he’s on the verge of not even being one of the big promoters anymore. But he’s an icon, having promoted Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Julio Cesar Chavez and Homer Simpson.
Fighters
Nikolai Valuev, Cory Spinks, Luis Collazo, Devon Alexander, Joseph Agbeko
Good for Fighters?
Umm, not really. I’d say that King was losing it with age, but truth is he was always batshit crazy. If I was a young prospect, NO WAY would I sign with King. He inexplicably leaves fighters sitting on the shelf (like Nate Campbell, who was forced to declare bankruptcy to get out of his contract). For the longest time, it seemed like Devon Alexander was getting shafted too. Steve Cunningham escaped from his clutches just weeks ago, but not before seeing King more or less ruin a date on ESPN with Matt Godfrey. Not to mention all the money he stole from Muhammad Ali, Mike Tyson, Ricardo Mayorga etc…
Grade: F
Good For Boxing?
Are you joking? King is everything that’s wrong with boxing personified. In terms of boxing’s image, he’s bad. Friends that know nothing about boxing come up and tell me that he’s a gangster and used to be a pimp (the pimp bit isn’t actually true, he used to run an illegal gambling den and killed two people — there’s a difference). His habit of leaving fighters to rot is bad for boxing, especially great guys like Alexander and Cunningham. And his shows (few and far between as they are these days) aren’t anything particuarly special.
Grade: D
Overall
Don King is by far the worst of a bad bunch here. Boxing will be a much better sport the day he retires.
Grade: F
(Another Shaw prospect about to go in tough on ShoBox)
GARY SHAW/GARY SHAW PRODUCTIONS
The permanantly tracksuited Shaw is a bit of a diamond in the rough. He swears, bitches and carries on but also cares for his fighters and isn’t afraid to put them in tough.
Fighters
Chad Dawson, Timothy Bradley, Andre Dirrell, Rafa Marquez, Alfredo Angulo, Yohhny Perez, Vic Darchinyan, Ali Funeka
Good for Fighters?
If I was a young gun with any confidence, I’d sign with Gary Shaw right away. He genuinely seems like a father figure to his fighters, albeit a fairly foul-mouthed one. While he’s a bit bombastic, the Fight Camp 360 documentary series has shown how much closer he works with his fighters compared to other promoters. On the other hand, if I wasn’t confident, I’d find someone else to promote me (maybe Bob Arum). Shaw isn’t afraid to put his guys in tough. When the Super Six was first announced, it seemed like he’d thrown Andre Dirrell into a tank of sharks with laser beams attached to their heads. You can see the same thing on Shobox, which he kinds of dominates.
Grade: B
Good for Boxing?
Can’t really complain about a guy who puts his boys into tough, testing fights. The lack of those fights is one of the major gripes that fans have with the sport. You can’t really criticise him for his domination on Showtime; that’s more their business than his — though I’m sure he doesn’t mind. The only real black mark against Shaw’s name in my book is the roadblock he put up between Vic Darchinyan and Nonito Donaire for so long. Like a jilted lover, he bitterly steered Darchinyan away from Donaire after being dumped by the latter. But time heals all wounds, and while the on-again/off-again Donaire-Darchinyan II no longer seems to be likely at this point, at least Shaw’s grudge no longer is the barrier it once was. Who said you can’t stay friends?
Grade: B-
Overall
While the cattiness he showed after the Donaire break up is a bit of a negative and his in your face style doesn’t please everyone, I think Shaw is one of the better of this lot.
Grade: B
(Manny sounds like Money, and if you close your eyes and imagine, he feels like it too)
BOB ARUM/TOP RANK
Bob Arum has been in the boxing biz for almost as long as Don King. He promoted most of megafights of the eighties, including the welterweight and middleweight shootout between “the four horsemen.” While Don King is known as a scumbag even to people who don’t follow boxing, Arum is today’s scumbag of choice for hardcore fans.
Fighters
Manny Pacquiao, Miguel Cotto, Antonio Margarito, Kelly Pavlik, Yuriorkis Gamboa, Juan Manuel Lopez and many, many others
Good for Fighters?
This one’s a little more complicated than the last two. On the one hand, Arum can seem like he genuinely cares for his fighters. Certainly the way he went into bat for Antonio Margarito after he got busted with loaded gloves demonstrates that. But wait a second… Arum is supposed to be promoting Miguel Cotto too. The same Cotto who Margarito beat to a bloody pulp, probably with half bricks for hands. Some say that “The Bobfather” is the master of building fighters and fights up until they reach epic proportions. So I guess I would take that on board if I was a young prospect. It doesn’t always work out like that though, and things can get overcooked, like the proposed John Duddy/Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. fight. And the souffle doesn’t rise twice, in the words of a former Aussie Prime Minister.
Grade: C
Good for Boxing?
Arum’s a mixed bag. It’s very easy to get stuck into him over all the things, big and little, that are so very wrong with the way he does business. So I will.
Arum’s personal vendettas and bitchiness are a plague on boxing. The infamous showdown between him and Golden Boy a few years back is a big-time example, as is his role in the Pacquiao-Mayweather negotiations. His continued, aggressive promotion of Antonio Margarito is another pox on the sport, especially Arum’s continued suggestion that Margacheato might fight Manny Pacquiao. His outbursts at fans, journalists and rivals are just plain embarassing. It feels a bit like you’re stuck in a taxi with a bigoted driver, unable to escape, when he does things like call mixed martial arts fans skinheads and MMA fighters homosexuals, as he did last year. Like Don King, I’d think he was going senile if he hadn’t always been such a dick. His instinct to try to build up fights can be a good thing, but it can also be excruciating, as is the case with Yuriorkis Gamboa and Juan Manuel Lopez. I have blue balls waiting for that fight. He’s also put on a string of crap undercards. On the other hand, no one knows the business of boxing better than Arum. He’s been extremely successful in marketing the sport to the Spanish speaking market and other ethnic groups in the United States. While you could say that is “ghettoising” the sport, he’s at least carved out solid, die hard markets among Latinos and Phillipinos. He’s getting boxing back out into big stadiums, a move that has earned the sport a lot of publicity. He does build up fighters well and he has at least the capability to put on a good show.
Grade: D
Overall
If Don King calls you a “rat fink,” there’s probably something wrong with you. Alot of the good things about Arum and Top Rank simply come from being a big, established firm. In the end, when your attitude is: “I know what people want, and they can go fuck themselves,” you get a bad mark.
Grade: D
OSCAR DE LA HOYA/GOLDEN BOY PROMOTIONS
Oscar De La Hoya’s company is the other American promotional behemoth. With a roster of current and past boxers as partners, a Swiss banker as a CEO and De La Hoya himelf at the helm, many thought that Golden Boy would be an agent for positive change in this most corrupt of sports. It hasn’t entirely turned out that way, but GBP probably isn’t as bad as some of its many detractors would have you believe.
Fighters (and Partners)
Bernard Hopkins (p), James Kirkland, Shane Mosley (p), Juan Manuel Marquez (p), Amir Khan, Israel Vasquez, Floyd Mayweather (kind of)… and many many more
Good for Fighters?
I think that Golden Boy tries to be good, it really does. But there’s some kind of hoodoo curse going on there. James Kirkland just loves guns, so that was always going to be a problem. Now he’s in jail, and if he doesn’t stop loving guns he’ll probably never be there for most of the rest of his life. Victor Ortiz seemed like a possible future star, but then he got put in with Marcos “Scariest Babyface in the World” Maidana and stopped. A few of their other prospects have been upset on their club card, Fight Night Club. On the other hand, they’re at least trying. Putting their guys in tough is probably a good thing. Not to mention the fact that they’re trying to get them on TV, and streaming live and free on the net. As a young prospect, I’d also have to consider their close relationship with HBO. They don’t have a track record of defections or poor treatment of fighters, which sadly has to be considered.
Grade: B-
Good for Boxing?
People seem to get more agitated by the bad stuff that Golden Boy does than by the bad stuff Bob Arum or other promoters do. Why is that? Probably because when the company was formed there was an expectation, encouraged by Golden Boy, that it would be a new dawn for boxing. But, surprise surprise, they’ve played almost as dirty as anyone else. First there was the briefcase full of cash handed to Manny Pacquiao by Oscar De La Hoya. Then there was their feud with Top Rank. Fans have also criticised their close relationship with HBO, with HBO overpaying for various Golden Boy promoted fights, but that’s more on HBO’s head than anything. Golden Boy also owns RING Magazine, aka “the Bible of Boxing.” Obviously this gives The RING a bit of a credibility issue. Generally they’ve handled it quite well, especially in terms of their rankings, but Oscar De La Hoya’s blogs have been shamelessly biased and really have no place in a supposedly independent magazine. On the other hand, GBP has done good work attracting sponsors to boxing. Their CEO, Richard Schaeffer, not a boxing insider, has a stated dream of getting boxing back on network TV. Bringing a regular boxing card to LA was a great step, as was broadcasting it online. Finally, Oscar De La Hoya himself brings a certain amount of attention to boxing because of his status as the most popular fighter of the last 10-15 years.
Grade: C
Overall
Oscar and co. haven’t been the white knight that many people wanted them to be. But that doesn’t mean that they’re pulling the strings of an international fight fixing conspiracy to favour Floyd Mayweather against Manny Pacquiao. The truth lies somewhere in between. While not the nice guys of boxing, Golden Boy certainly aren’t operating on the same shady level as Don King or Bob Arum.
Grade: C
(Grade: A. And DiBella is a good promoter, too)
LOU DIBELLA/DIBELLA ENTERTAINMENT
DiBella, formerly the head of programming at HBO Sports, is known as one of the good guys of the sport, and for good reason. He’s a straight talker and genuinely seems to care for the welfare of his fighters. He’s not totally “St. Lou,” but he’s more than a nose ahead of anyone else in terms of promoter ethics (oxymoron?).
Fighters
Allan Green, Sergio Martinez, Paulie Malignaggi, Andre Berto, Glen Johnson, Kermit Cintron
Good for Fighters?
This is the category that DiBella really shines in. He gives off a vibe of actually being… principled. When Jermain Taylor was badly, badly knocked out by Arthur Abraham, DiBella was one of the first to advice him to take a break, despite the fact that he could have continued to make money from him. He went so far as to say that he couldn’t promote him any longer. His thanks? Being snubbed by Taylor in his farewell press release. But I appreciated your stand Lou, I swear. He’s spoken in the past about the need for a health plan for boxers, which is certainly a good idea. Generally, if I was a fighter I’d sign with him and treat him like the fat Italian dad I never had.
Grade: A
Good for Boxing?
Everything mentioned before also applies in this category. He’s a fairly consistent voice of reason in a sport that very often lacks that. Obviously he’s not perfect. One of fans’ biggest complaints is fighters being matched against tomato cans, or Boxcar Joes as I like to call them. DiBella is as guilty of that as anyone on this list. But that’s about my biggest criticism, which is a huge compliment in a group as shady as this.
Grade: A
Overall
DiBella is the true standout of this group. Not only is he not evil, sometimes he’s actually proactively good!
Grade: A
DAN GOOSSEN/GOOSSEN-TUTOR
Dan Goossen has been in the boxing biz for a long time, but formed Goossen Tutor Promotions in 2002 with financial backing from Ron Tutor, a construction magnate. In the past he promoted Terry Norris, Gabe and Rafa Ruelas and B.A. Baracus, as well as working for Bob Arum. His promotion company is pretty straight up, neither bad nor good.
Fighters
Roberto Guerrero, Paul Williams, Cris Arreola, Andre Ward, Eddie Chambers
Good for Fighters?
Goossen seems to do quite well for his fighters, but lacks the personality of Shaw and DiBella. He obviously faced an uphill battle trying to get Paul Williams into championship level fights, but eventually got it done. His stable of heavyweight prospects could be said to have faced soft opposition but… oh wait, that’s what the heavyweight division is. No complaints out of the ordinary in terms of matchmaking or looking after fighters. As an amateur boxer, I did find it somewhat encouraging that on their website there are spaces left in the roster that say “this could be you.”
Grade: B
Good for Boxing?
Again, nothing exceptionally bad about Goossen Tutor. Goossen was the only promoter that testified to Congress in the lead up to the Muhammad Ali Act, which is a plus. I want to find something to criticise about the heavyweight stable, but you can only work with what you’ve got. Maybe don’t hold press events for Cris Arreola in spaghetti restaurants in future…
Grade: B
Overall
In reality, Goossen Tutor is probably one of the best promotional firms. DiBella was always going to be a hard act to follow.
Grade: B
One of the difficulties that this presented was pitting the biggest promoters against smaller ones. Of course Top Rank and Golden Boy are worse than the smaller firms, simply because they have more opportunity to exploit fans and fighters. It’s difficult to say how Shaw, DiBella and Goossen would be if they had the power and responsibility of the bigger firms. We know how King would be, because we’ve seen it.
Also keep in mind that these marks are relative, DiBella is only rated so high because of the cesspit he’s swimming in.
Maybe for another day: the European promoters!
