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MAGNO'S BULGING MAIL SACK: STEVENSON, HEARN, AND EVIL PROMOTERS

By Paul Magno | May 24, 2018
MAGNO'S BULGING MAIL SACK: STEVENSON, HEARN, AND EVIL PROMOTERS

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays my sack from releasing its gooey ooze of truth all over the Universo Pugilistico. So, sit back, cock your head slightly to the right and get ready for some wisdom.

Promoters, Bad?

Hey Paul,

It seems like David Benavidez is trying to jump ship from Sampson [Lewkowicz] to Top Rank. I understand Sampson’s frustration but if TR is really offering Benavidez a shit load of money it’s obviously a business move. 

There was a similar situation towards the end of Cotto’s career where he refused to sign with Arum again and the way Arum reacted towards Cotto in the media you would've thought Cotto was Satan himself.

Why do these boxing promoters feel like boxers owe them their whole life? Yeah Sampson got Benavidez a title shot and all but it’s a two-way street, I’m sure Sampson made money in the process.

Boxing should figure out a way to not need promoters, they are all the same IMO (TR,GB,TMT,etc). Shout out to fighters like Mikey Garcia that refuse to sign with promoters.

-- Aldo Sandoval

I'm not against promoters, per se...I'm just against a system where the promoter is all-powerful and has his hand in everything, including selection of judges and officials. That's what breeds corruption in boxing. You simply can't have someone with a huge financial stake in the outcome of a fight having the power (or heavy influence) to select the judges for that fight. 

I do recognize the promoter's role in building fighters and events. I also realize how much money they invest into building a fighter and how they operate deeply in the red for the first few years of a fighter's career. Sometimes, they never fully get back the money they've put into building their guys.

But there's no way to clean up the sport without limiting the promoter's ability to entirely control the game board and flat-out own the careers of fighters. 

I proposed long ago that it would be healthier for the sport if promoters were prohibited from signing fighters to exclusive contracts in favor of bidding for events on a card by card basis. If that happened, IMO, it turns the focus from protecting fighters as a sort of second manager to building quality cards that can put asses in seats and eyeballs on TVs.

Until the current system changes, though, promoters will continue treating fighters as property to be controlled, manipulated, and stolen from less watchful "owners." 

And, yeah, kudos to guys like Floyd Mayweather and Mikey Garcia who can get by as free men in this indentured servitude business model.

Stevenson, difficult?

Hey Paul,

Just read some of your criticism about Adonis Stevenson and it really tickles my curiosity.

I do get it about him being a wasted potentials for half a decade without any meaningful/legacy fights but do you have any records whatsoever on why things happened the way they are? I mean like his very minimum fights, do you have any news/records/whispers that probably his manager/promoter protected him? or the fact that Adonis's team is a very tough negotiator, or probably something like that?

Please shade lights on this, I am no Adonis's fans and have nothing against your writing, just want to know.

Best.

-- Willy

There's been lots of chatter over the years of Stevenson and his people being tough to work with, but I don't accept any media accounts as absolute truth unless I have some actual proof to confirm the reports. Generally, though, if everyone seems to have a problem with one guy, it's usually the one guy that's to blame and not everyone else. 

I don't even care about who's to "blame," though. All I care about is the black and white truth on paper that shows you, ultimately, who the guy fought and didn't fight. At some point, you take ownership of the reality that you aren't putting on the fights people want and you do something about it.

Just like with Gennady Golovkin, I don't care about the "whys" when it comes to fights not getting made, I just care about them not getting made. The buck stops with the name on the marquee. If you're interested in legacy, then you look for ways to book interesting, compelling opponents. 

Hearn

Magno. 

Eddie Hearn's got a billion dollars to play with over eight years for his new streaming project. Will this succeed in changing the boxing business and will it meet with the same resistance PBC met?

-- Simon

It probably won't meet with that same PBC level of resistance because there was a whole cultural aspect to Haymon's project that isn't there with Hearn. Plus, Hearn isn't trying to change the business structure of the sport the way PBC aimed to do. 

I support Hearn's efforts, as I do with anyone aiming to build the sport towards bigger and better things. I don't like paywalls, but I'm not against a dedicated streaming service that puts out consistent quality content at a reasonable price. ESPN's new app, for instance, is a buzzkill because it serves to take content that could've been offered on basic cable and is shuffling it off to a pay app. That's not a positive. But to take content from premium cable and offer it at a cheaper (or competitive) price as a streaming option, well, that's a move forward, IMO. 

Hearn's got two years to make this work and it'll be an uphill climb to get everyone signed up and then get the word out to fans. A couple of big fights could spread the word and get fight fans onboard. Maybe he can use Joshua-Wilder as the ultimate lure to fans. At the end of the day, this project is going to boil down to the star power of the fighters he can sign and the strength of the match-ups made. He's certainly going to have the money at his disposal, so it's going to be a fun two years to watch. 

Got a question (or hate mail) for Magno’s Bulging Mail Sack? The best of the best gets included in the weekly mailbag segment right here at FightHype. Send your stuff here: paulmagno@theboxingtribune.com.

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