FightHype.com

BILL "DOLLAR BILL" WALLER: "START PREPARING FOR ROUND 13...THEY CALL ME THE $8 MILLION DOLLAR MAN"

By Percy Crawford | November 25, 2014
BILL

"I started telling the boxers you gotta start preparing for round 13. I told K9 round 13 is your life after boxing. Not when you are done and you are a former champ because it's tougher because everyone loves a winner…I got $8 million dollars for that fight and that's why they call me the $8 million dollar man…Bob Arum, HBO and Butch Lewis were very instrumental in helping me, and then fighters came along like Tony Tubbs, who I just talked to him 2 days ago, and along came Macho Camacho, who I loved like a little brother, and his attorney Jim Levin," stated Bill "Dollar Bill" Waller, who talked about his history, teaming up with Cornelius "K9" Bundrage, and much more. Check it out!

PC: The man, the myth, the legend: "Dollar Bill." How are you doing?

BW: (Laughing) I'm doing great, Percy. How are you?

PC: I can't complain one bit. You are actively working with K9 Bundrage as the COO of K9 Boxing Global Promotions, but you have been around boxing and entertainers for a very long time. Tell us about your start.

BW: I have only represented champions all of my life, from Aaron Pryor to Tony Tubbs to Macho Camacho and Greg Page. These are guys that I became close to because I'm a former professional athlete. I was drafted by the New Orleans Saints, and I didn't know I was gonna get hurt. I thought I was gonna be this big star and all of a sudden, bam, I pulled my leg. I was out hurt and I was like, "What do I do now?" It was a good thing I had my education, but I didn't want to be an English teacher, which was what I had my degree in, so I said I might as well be a sports agent and stay in the field that I like. So I started negotiating contracts for some of my teammates, and then I'm from Cincinnati, so I got close to George Foster and Ken Griffey Sr. and started negotiating baseball contracts and then football. I kept telling the athletes, because I was still a young athlete that had just came out of being a professional athlete, I said, "Man, don't let happen to you what happened to me." When I got hurt, it was like, "God, all of my life I had been an All American football player and had all of these records and got drafted by the Saints, why did he let me get hurt?" I realized I had to prepare for the 5th quarter.

The 5th quarter was life after football. So I started telling the boxers you gotta start preparing for round 13. I told K9 round 13 is your life after boxing. Not when you are done and you are a former champ because it's tougher because everyone loves a winner. I told him he was articulate, he is a family man, he has character, he fights for Jesus, he's respectful with his wife and honestly, he is a lot different from most boxers I have seen. Most fighters come out of the street. K9 came out of the street. I was out of the street before I went and got my education in Cincinnati. But I told him, we can turn that, man, so that your sons can…why is it that when we look up in the sky box and see Jerry Jones, his son is right next to him and his grandkids? Why is it in Detroit, you see Henry Ford III and his grandson. I told him, "You got two sons, man, so they are due that." Oscar De La Hoya became a citizen and fought for this country in the Olympics. K9 didn't get a chance to do that, but Oscar came back with his image and formed his own company. So he thought about round 13, but he did it while he was still fighting. So I told K9 if I was gonna get involved, I don't need to be your manager. I'll be your adviser/agent, but let me work with the lady that was with you from your second fight to present, Shawana. Don't look at her as just your wife, or a homemaker, or mother. This lady knows boxing. I have talked to her. I told him to sign her as his manager so people won't think she's just your wife and she's just free. Although she was a great basketball player, she really knows boxing. So I felt my purpose would be better served as an adviser to him through her to empower her so that she could be his manager. I will be there because this is a tough business and I'm not gonna let anybody take advantage of him business-wise, so I will be his agent. And that's how we got started.

PC: He recently won the IBF title back. How important was it for him to go over to Mexico and come back with that strap?

BW: Well, even before that Percy, I told him he had to take this mandatory against Hernandez and they only gonna pay us $6,600, but they wanna resign you and give you this money. I told him, "But you don't have to do that." And let me tell you why. In 1982, I went to Bob Arum and his wife Sybil and I said, "Please, allow me to co-promote under Hawk Productions and co-promote this Alexis Arguello fight." We co-promoted that event and it was the Fight of the Decade! I told them we could do it in Miami and they wanted to do it in Vegas. They asked me why did I want to do it in Miami and I told them, "I know Mr. Roby. I used to play for the Saints and we just played in his stadium." I got a contact to call Mr. Roby and I said, "Listen, can we use the stadium? Alexis Arguello is from Nicaragua and I wanted to bring all of these people to fill up the stadium." I'll go get the truck out of London because I was familiar with it because I worked in broadcasting. I was syndicated with Phil Donahue, so I knew television. Bob said, "You know, I'll give you a couple of closed circuit markets in Ohio," and Bob Arum became the first guy to give me a shot at co-promoting. Not just Mayweather given a shot by Golden Boy, but it was HBO, Bob Arum, and my mentor, Butch Lewis. I signed Tony Tubbs to him. We went up to New York when Tony turned pro. Tony Tubbs turned pro in 1981. He told me right out of the Olympics that he wanted me to represent him and he wanted me to go see a guy out of New York named Butch Lewis. He said, "You and him remind me of each other." I said, "Okay!" So I get on a plane to go see Butch Lewis and he opens the door and says, "Damn, you act like me," and I said, "You act like me." So we started laughing. He said, "Look, I used to work with Bob Arum. He is a good guy, but you need to learn not just to be a manager, but you need to learn this whole game, so come on and let me teach you this."

Butch Lewis became that mentor for me, so by the time I went to Bob Arum, I had this on my mind that I didn't just want Aaron to get a basic salary. He says, "Well HBO never paid a million dollars in their history to a non-heavyweight. It's gotta be a heavyweight." I said, "No, let me go in and negotiate." He said, "How you gonna negotiate?" I said, "Here is what I'm gonna do." Panama Lewis and I put a camera on Aaron because I played football and we used to always watch film. So I filmed Aaron one day and he was throwing 92 punches a round, so I'm not gonna sell his weight, I'm gonna sell his excitement. So I went in and they asked me what did I want? I said, "$1.6 million," because I had promised Aaron I would make him the first non-heavyweight to get a million dollar purse and that's what it became. So from that point on, I got $1.6 and Bob agreed and told me if I wanted to co-promote, he would get me closed circuit market in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, so we went on a 20-city promotional tour in Gary, Indiana and Chicago, but it was Bob Arum who first allowed that. Push the clock forward and he did the same thing with Oscar to help him. And it was HBO who understood that. So if I had to thank 3 people in boxing that influenced me most, it was Butch Lewis, Bob Arum and HBO! We had a fight in a stadium. When is the last time you seen a fight in a stadium?

PC: You're absolutely right. You also tried to put Aaron Pryor and Ray "Boom Boom" Mancini in a stadium as well, right?

BW: That's correct. I went to Woody Hayes and asked him can Aaron Pryor fight in your stadium against "Boom Boom" Mancini? They both from Ohio and they are both undefeated. And he said, "Yes, you could rent the stadium." So we were gonna rent the stadium. I got $8 million dollars for that fight and that's why they call me the "$8 million dollar man!" He was gonna rent us the stadium to have "The Battle of the Ohioians;" "Battle of the Buckeyes." But what happened was, "Boom Boom" took a fight and lost, so then we couldn't sell it as the battle of two undefeated guys. But Bob Arum, HBO and Butch Lewis were very instrumental in helping me, and then fighters came along like Tony Tubbs, who I just talked to him 2 days ago, and along came Macho Camacho, who I loved like a little brother, and his attorney Jim Levin. Macho and I met and you will never guess where we met.

PC: Had to be somewhere in New Orleans for you to say I would never guess (laughing).

BW: We met at St. Jude's Hospital down there. I got him and Aaron Pryor to go with me to St. Jude's to talk to the little kids behind the glass that had cancer. They were saying, "It's Macho Time," and Aaron was saying, "Hawk Time!" Macho came to me and he said, "You know what? I want you to be my agent, man." He said, "I ain't never had a nigga for an agent," and I said, "Well, I ain't never had a Puerto Rican for a client." So he and I became friends and he told me, "I haven't been paid right." So Don King allowed me to negotiate. And without a doubt, Don King is the biggest brand in boxing and is a guy who allowed me to say crazy numbers like $5 million for a boxer. I was asking for $3 to $5 million for Macho and Don made sure he got it. I don't care what they say about Mr. King, the guy paid me and Macho. And I don't care what they say about Bob Arum. I hear he is this and he is that, but I appreciate and respect Bob Arum as a guy who allowed the boxer to enter the 13th round. He allowed Oscar to enter the 13th round. So what K9 Boxing Global Promotions is, I went to the champ and said, "Look, lets form this company. I'll be your COO. I don't want to own it. You own it 100%. I'll be your partner in it and we will split revenues, but you own it. I don't want to own it. I want this to be your gift because you're going to take kids out of the street. We gonna do things with dogs and foundations. All of these dogs that they are putting to sleep, these K-9 police dogs and military dogs. When the police retire, the dog doesn't get any money. The dog goes out to the pasture, so let us do a pension fund." So we teamed up with Terry Foley, who is the President of the National K-9 Academy out of Michigan. So when these dogs retire, we gonna get them a dog collar that says K-9 and get them medical attention and food until it's that dogs time. That's the foundation. So the champ decided to form K-9 Foundation. He listened to me. I told him to form K9 Boxing Global Promotions and he listened to me. So now he's set up for round 13, Percy.

It's like I used to tell Babyface when I was working the deal with LA [Reid] and those guys, as long as you guys write music the way you guys write music, you don't ever have to worry about being off the stage. The gift you have, Percy, and the way you do your interviews, you don't ever have to let someone say they don't want you writing for them anymore. LA Reid, another guy that listened to me, man, he prepared for life after music. He's from Cincinnati like me. I love LA Reid. He and I used to have breakfast every morning talking about life when you're not on the charts anymore. It all started with me getting hurt. When God got me injured, I said, "Man, I didn't prepare for the 5th quarter." And then I did; I became an agent. When I'm around an athlete, I don't talk about the money. I talk life after boxing or whatever sport they are in or genre they are in because money gonna be there if you are successful and K9 was the perfect guy to do it because he's not on drugs, he drinks milk and not alcohol; when he was little, this guy was doing 1,000 push-ups a day at 11 years old. This guy isn't using drugs or steroids, so he is amazing to me. And with the passion that he has, I had no choice but to work with him because I lost too many boxers, man, who were champions to the streets! I lost them to the streets with no money and I didn't want that because they talk bad about them guys. So with K9, I let him know he was gonna have his own company and I was going to mentor him. I would be there to get it going; that way, whenever he decided to retire, whether that be at 45 or 46 years old, he won't leave boxing. He would be helping other boxers. And that's the relationship we have. It's a very special relationship. He used to call me when he was on "The Contender" and he would say, "I'm on The Contender," and I used to say, "Man, don't call me until you're a champ!" When he knocked out Cory Spinks, he called and said, "I'm a champ now." I said, "Okay, now we can talk." I used to always tell him, "You have to get health insurance. You have to incorporate," and he didn't even know what that was and I told him, "Man, you have to be incorporated." I was doing that because he is such a good guy and has such of a strong character and I didn't want to see him get a bad deal.

PC: You are working on something big for K9 Boxing Global Promotions from what I understand.

BW: We are very close to a TV partner. I can't say it until the ink is dry, but I will promise you this, the minute we sign, the first call that I make so that they have the scoop on it will be you. You got my word on that.

PC: That means a lot to me. I appreciate that.

BW: You got it. We are very close and you could probably guess where. If we have that position, we have to maintain, that way there is credibility and we have to make sure that the boxers that we promote are all paid well and every boxer that is coming to the K9 Boxing Global Promotions camp have to be taught about the 13th round. We are not gonna let a boxer leave boxing and go to the streets or they can't pay for their house. We trying to change that to where we are not just promoting events, but if you look, when we promoted in Cancun, the first thing I said was, "Where is the hospital with the children?" So we went to see them and we brought some celebrities. We had the producer out of Las Vegas, Mystro, we had the guy from The Power Rangers from Detroit, Walter E. Jones. They are all in the K9 celebrity camp. We need these celebrities to help us promote and reach people because we're always gonna say, "Where are the schools, where are the hospitals, where are the the children?" We get there a couple of days before the fight and spend time with the kids and then we're always gonna tie in some kind of musical event. And then you add Shawana to the mix, who is the only African American woman managing a world champion, and she is a great balance for him because when he looks over at her, she is a reminder that that's not only my manager, that's the mother of my kids, my soul mate, and that's the person that's been with me since my second fight. She's helping him pick opponents and watching over his business. She's been a tough business woman and I call them "Beauty and the Beast." She's got the beauty and the brains and he's the beast in the ring. I want K9 making affordable homes in Detroit and building gyms to get the kids off of the streets. People talk money, money, money, money and we are talking success, success, success, success because success brings cash; cash will never bring success.



[ Follow Percy Crawford on Twitter @MrLouis1ana ]

MARCH 18, 2024
MARCH 17, 2024
MARCH 14, 2024
MARCH 12, 2024
MARCH 11, 2024
MARCH 07, 2024
MARCH 04, 2024
FEBRUARY 29, 2024
FEBRUARY 27, 2024
FEBRUARY 22, 2024
FEBRUARY 19, 2024
FEBRUARY 15, 2024
FEBRUARY 12, 2024
FEBRUARY 08, 2024
FEBRUARY 05, 2024
FEBRUARY 01, 2024
JANUARY 31, 2024
JANUARY 30, 2024
JANUARY 29, 2024
JANUARY 25, 2024
JANUARY 22, 2024
JANUARY 18, 2024
JANUARY 15, 2024
JANUARY 12, 2024
JANUARY 11, 2024
JANUARY 08, 2024
JANUARY 04, 2024
JANUARY 01, 2024