Better: Working together:
I love that we have to listen to three or four different promoters after each press conference. It means they are working together. The “Super Six” alone features five different promotional outlets. And with Yvon Michel working well with Sauerland on Ross vs. Cunningham, it makes Lucien Bute vs. the "Super Six" winner that more likely (if it ends up being a Sauerland fighter).
Worse: Fighting too hard for advantages:
Do not think for two seconds that either of the Andre’s would have been victorious had those “Super Six” fights taken place on European soil. While it was entirely fair the way each man won… Sauerland Promotions would have stolen both of those fights had they taken place in Germany . Ward’s head-butts would have been ruled intentional, and he would have either been disqualified, or penalized to the point that a technical decision could have been stolen for an undeserving Kessler. Abraham’s foul over Dirrell would have been ruled unintentional, and they would have gone to the scorecards where Abraham would have been inexplicably ahead. It is this knowledge that has led Sauerland to fight so hard for hometown advantage lately. They lost the purse bids for Sylvester vs. Karmazin, and instead of accepting it, the way everyone else would, they negotiated out of it… to the point where Sylvester will now defend in his hometown. Karmazin’s promoter was able to receive American officials in exchange, and I hope it makes a difference. However, I know our refs and judges can be bought and bribed like any other, and even if they are honest, a hometown crowd is a difficult thing to overcome. These promoters are business men, pure and simple. They have no interest in sporting fairness, unless we force them to. They are only interested in looking after their client. Sergei Dzindzruk should be applauded for risking valuable years to escape this.
Better: Number of options. In the 80’s and 90’s, you had three choices: Don King, Bob Arum, or obscurity. Sure, there was Chargin, Kushner, Duva, Peltz, etc. However, close decisions would never go your way if you did not belong to one of the big dogs. Nowadays, it is rare for a fighter to spend his career with only one promoter. Even Don King is letting fighters go instead of letting them sit. This attitude, along with the aforementioned co-promoted cards, is spreading the work-load, while getting a lot more fights made. We have star fighters to thank for this. De La Hoya, Leonard, Duran, Roy Jones, etc. have all at one time or another been able to compete due to name recognition. This opened up a lot of avenues for other promoters. Now, they just need to learn from Arum and King about how to fill arenas.
Worse: Relying on race/regional prides:
This seems to be going on way too much lately. Promoter Kathy Duva was so disappointed in having to take heavyweight Tomasz Adamek to California , she repeatedly suggested that the rest of his career would be taking place in Jersey . Excuse me, Kathy, but he had never fought outside of a Polish or Polish-American audience, with the exception of his lone loss to Chad Dawson. In order to be great, fighters need to fight outside of their comfort zone, and win on the road. The bizarre thing was that her fighter had just done that! These business-people should be applauded for putting asses in seats, but to only do so with regional, racist ethnic pride is cheating (are you listening Bob Arum?). We need more national, and international, stars. Take the risk. You’ll end up making more money when you come back home, because international audiences will be watching.
Chris Strait
www.convictedartist.com
Chris Strait Video Boxing Predictions
www.str8boxing.com
